The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Quick Stop by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

When I interviewed Berke Breathed a few years back, I asked him if there would finally by a comprehensive Bloom County collection like the recently available Calvin & Hobbes and Peanuts volumes. Breathed was dismissive of the idea, claiming that no one wanted to read the strip, that it was no longer relevant, and it just wasn’t going to happen. Well, a few years have gone by, someone talked a bit of sense into him, so we have the first, glorious volume of The Bloom County Library (IDW, $39.99 SRP), collecting the first two years. Granted, those first two years bear more resemblance to Doonesbury than the Bloom County we know and love, but the strip quickly evolves and finds its way, so by the end of the volume, we’re into familiar territory. Breathed also provides commentary, which places the strips into their historical context. Overall, the presentation is exactly what fans have been waiting for, and volume 2 can’t come fast enough.

Ever wish you had the ability to switch something on and off with a regular ol’ wall switch? Like a lamp, or a game system? But without having to have the switch be on the wall? And have it be wireless? Well, now you can, with the Instant Switch ($24.95), which allows you to do just that. Ain’t technology grand? AIN’T IT?!?!

I’m often baffled by their selection process, but the one thing the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame manages to impress with on a rather consistent basis is the musical performances of the inductees - and tributes from other artists who perform their work. With a roster that includes everyone from Paul McCartney and The Doors to John Lee Hooker and Little Richard, it’s an eclectic bunch, to be sure. For those who’ve never caught the ceremonies in the past - or just want to relive the music - Time Life has delivered an incredible collection across 9 volumes - Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame + Museum: Live (Time Life, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), featuring literally dozens of artists in an equal amount of unique, memorable performances from these ceremonies. Get it.

Hitchcock’s classic North By Northwest (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$24.82 SRP) will be delighted by just how stunning the restored picture and sound looks and sounds, as the film has never, ever looked this good (even during its theatrical run). The 2-disc set includes a pair of brand new documentaries, plus carries over the audio commentary, featurettes, galleries, and TV spots from the previous special edition release. It’s also available in a Blu-Ray edition ($34.99), which - as you can imagine - looks just that much better.

Another strip which IDW has begun collecting is Bil Keane’s precocious kids via the Family Circus Library: Volume 1 (IDW, $39.99 SRP). Every bit as high quality as their other deluxe releases, hardbound and premium, the premiere volume contains the first year of the strip, running from 1960-1961. Is it worth it? Yes, it’s worth it.

A very close second to the original cross-country trek of the Griswold clan, I’m a big fan of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$49.99 SRP). It still holds up as a comic joy and a true holiday perennial, and it’s been given the deluxe special edition treatment just in time for this holiday. The film itself has been given a high-definition release with an audio commentary and the theatrical trailer, and the collectible tin comes packed with a Wally the Moose Santa Hat, miniature replica of the Wally mug, fake snow, and a badge.

It’s the holidays, which means some classic perennials are getting an upgrade and re-release just in time for seasonal viewing. Getting the high definition treatment is Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life (Paramount, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP), which lands as a quite spiffy looking 2-disc set containing both the must-see black & white and best to avoid colorized versions, plus the making-of documentary and original theatrical trailer found on the original standard DVD special edition. Sadly not in HD (it would have been quite a visual feast) is the new 2-disc anniversary edition of White Christmas (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$ SRP), which sports an audio commentary with Rosemary Clooney, a half-dozen featurettes, and a pair of theatrical trailers.

There are unique minds, and then there are uber-unique minds… Minds which create their own sphere of reality, daring others to step within the range of its influence and be swept away. One of those minds is Tony Millionaire, whose work has been given a must-have hardcover tome in The Art Of Tony Millionaire (Dark Horse Books, $39.95 SRP). Packed with art and anecdotes, this volume should be on your shelf. Right next to that Michael Kupperman book. You know the one… Yeah, that one. So just get it.

Long, long after the release of the penultimate 3rd season and a poorly-packaged complete series box set, everything is made right with the release of Fraggle Rock: The Complete Final Season (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$28.98 SRP), containing interviews and featurettes galore. Also getting a re-release is a more intelligently packaged Fraggle Rock: The Complete Series (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$99.98 SRP) and a holiday-centric Fraggle Rock: A Merry Fraggle Holiday (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), containing a trio of festive episodes, an episode of the animated series, an Emmet Otter sing-along, and a look at The Christmas Toy.

More so even that ET, Forrest Gump (Paramount, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$38.98 SRP) is a completely manipulative, exquisitely crafted piece of Hollywood feel good prize-pumping cinema. And yes, I did enjoy it when I first saw it in the theater, way back in 1994 - it pushes buttons quite well, thank you, and it pushed mine, even if I have felt dirty about it ever since. Well, it’s now gotten a release in high def via Paramount’s new deluxe Sapphire Series as a 2-disc special edition featuring a pair of audio commentaries, a featurette on the soundtrack, 9 behind-the-scenes featurettes, and screen tests. I feel so dirty, AND I want a box of chocolates.

By its 3rd season, Spin City (Shout! Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) was a well-oiled machine, with the entire cast on equal footing with star Michael J. Fox (particularly the dynamic between Alan Ruck and Michael Boatman). The 4-disc set contains all 26 episodes, but sadly no bonus features.

Whereas the live action film was a mess, I thought that GI Joe: Resolute (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP) was a faithful, entertaining update of the GI Joe cartoon I loved as a child, and was able to introduce a more adult approach without coming off as a violent, wrongheaded attempt at being “adult”. Don’t believe me? Check out the disc for yourself, which features additional scenes, behind-the-scenes interviews, storyboards, and the teaser.

You know that great Saturday Night Live book from a few years back - the one by Tom Shales that features dozens of interviews telling the tale of the show’s history in a remarkably candid way? Well, Author Mike Thomas has done the same thing for the legendary improvisational group which spawned many an SNL castmember - and comedy icon - with The Second City Unscripted (Villard Books, $26.00 SRP). Every comedy fan should get this. Now.

While it’s not the educational films I would have liked to have seen in the series (or Song Of The South), I welcome the Walt Disney Treasures release of both Zorro: The Complete First Season & Zorro: The Complete Second Season (Walt Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$59.99 SRP each). The show looks better than it ever did in the long ago Disney Channel reruns, and both sets contains intros from Leonard Maltin. The sets also feature the Walt Disney Presents episodes and newly-produced featurettes (even a collectible pin). As always, the Walt Disney Treasures series delivers a treat. Here’s to more…

I’m not exactly sure what the concept is behind Adult Swim In A Box (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$69.98 SRP). In a nutshell, it’s a big ol’ boxset containing a mix of various Adult Swim shows. The odd thing is it’s different seasons of the shows, with no real logic behind their inclusion. Was the boxset just a way to unload a bunch of sets that were sitting around in inventory? Included in the set are Sealab 2021: Season 2, Metalocalypse: Season 1, Robot Chicken: Season 2, Space Ghost Coast To Coast: Season 3, Moral Orel: Season 1, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume 2. So what’s the incentive to buy the set? The clever inclusion of an exclusive bonus disc, containing a handful of pilots - The Best Of Totally For Teens, Cheyenne Cinnamon And The Fantabulous Unicorn Of Sugar Town Candy Fudge, Korgoth Of Barbaria, Perfect Hair Forever, and Welcome To Eltingville. Clever bastards.

Bit by bit, we’re getting DVD releases of all of the various Saturday morning animated iterations of the DC superheroes, and the latest to get its time on plastic is the short-lived Ruby-Spears Superman (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP), which was the pre-Dini/Timm but post-Crisis version of the Man of Steel, that actually used reorchestrated versions of John Williams’ theatrical theme. The 2-disc set contains all 13 episodes, plus a featurette on Lexcorp.

There’s nothing quite so electrifying as Muhammad Ali in interviews, even those when he was in the early years of his decline, and you’ll find plenty of them in Champions Forever: The Definitive Edition - Muhammad Ali the Lost Interviews (Image, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP), which contains unused footage shot in 1990 for the Champions Forever documentary.

Really - it seems like there are an unlimited number of classic Doctor Who adventures. Are we even close to getting them all on DVD? They just keep coming and coming. Latest is an arc from the Peter Davison years - Doctor Who: The Black Guardian Trilogy (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP), a 3-disc set containing Mawdryn Undead, Terminus, and Enlightenment. Bonus materials are the usual Who potpourri of commentaries, featurettes, galleries, and more.

I know I should be swept up in its formulaic, rom-comminess, but there’s an unavoidable charm to Richard Curtis’s Love Actually (Universal, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$26.98 SRP). The film has just found its way to high definition, with an audio commentary, featurettes, and music videos.

It may not be a very well-written or executed superhero cartoon, but I have find childhood memories of the episodes contained in Plastic Man: The Complete Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$44.98 SRP). The 4-disc set contains all 36 episodes of the pliable one’s adventures, plus a retrospective featurette and the original pilot episode.

It may not be as polished as the films of Pixar, but there’s a lot of charm and energy in the Ice Age series, and I was surprised to find out that there was still some steam in Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (Fox, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP), which finds our heroes discovering a lost world and interacting with dinosaurs - I mean, it was inevitable they’d find a way to bring them in to the mix. Does it work? Yeah, it does. Fox has taken a cue from Disney and have crafted a Blu-Ray/DVD combo package, with bonus features including an audio commentary, behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, Scrat shorts, and more.

How do you make sure the DVD re-release of Mickey’s Magical Christmas: Snowed In At The House Of Mouse (Walt Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$26.99 SRP) sells? Make sure the cover has a trio of Disney Princesses (Snow White, Cinderella, and Ariel) joining Mickey, Donald, and the gang. Crass? Sure, which is a shame, since it’s actually a pretty decent holiday special. Bonus features include the premiere episode of House of Mouse, a featurette on sound effects, and sing-along songs.

It’s certainly not the holidays without penguins, right? Right. Which makes The March Of The Penguins: Limited Edition Giftset (Warner Bros., Rated G, DVD-$39.98 SRP) a nice gift, as it comes with not only the titular documentary, but also a new documentary about warm-weather penguins and a plush penguin toy.

In the vein of goofy babysitter flicks of the 80’s like Batteries Not Included and Spaced Invaders comes the kids & extraterrestrials romp Aliens In The Attic (Fox, Rated PG, DVD-$29.99 SRP). Can you guess there are aliens in the aforementioned upstairs area? Bonus features include featurettes, deleted scenes, an alternate ending, a bonus animated short, and a gag reel. A Blu-Ray edition ($39.99 SRP) is also available with identical bonus materials.

It’s not the sharpest, most clever of political commentary, but there’s a certain closure to Will Ferrell’s Broadway outing You’re Welcome America: A Final Night With George W Bush (HBO, Not Rated, DVD-$19.97 SRP). The show had a limited run on the Great White Way, and found Ferrell performing the impression formed during his SNL days, summarizing the man behind two Presidential terms. Bonus features include a pair of featurettes and a game.

The TV show releases are wrapped, which brings us to the first volume of The Rockford Files: Movie Collection (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP), which finds James Garner back on the case in a quartet of TV movies.

As a tour guide into the work of Charles Darwin and his landmark theory of evolution, one couldn’t hope for a better, more engaging host than Sir David Attenborough, who takes by the hand on Charles Darwin And The Tree Of Life (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP).

I admit, there was a schlocky appeal to the first Wrong Turn, and it’s always worth watching Eliza Dusku (well, except in Dollhouse - there’s nothing about that worth watching. But with Eliza long gone, there’s very little to Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead (Fox, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP) worth watching, as it becomes just another of those direct-to-video franchises. A franchise! Whoda thunk it?

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

-Ken Plume

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By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp

PIRATE RADIO - SCREENING

Because you animals are so ravenous for free stuff, I’ve got another free screening here in Phoenix.

It’s for the new movie PIRATE RADIO and it will be held on Thursday, November 12th at 7:00 inside the Harkins Fashion Square 7.

For those looking to see the newest entry into the oeuvre of  Philip Seymour Hoffman, then this ought to be up your alley.

E-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com for the chance to see it.

A description of the movie:

PIRATE RADIO is the high-spirited story of how 8 DJs love affair with Rock n Roll changed the world forever. In the 1960s this group of rouge DJs, on a boat in the middle of the Northern Atlantic, played rock records and broke the law all for the love of music. The songs they played united and defined an entire generation and drove the British government crazy. By playing Rock n Roll they were standing up against the British government who did everything in their power to shut them down. The band of rebels is lead by The Count, played by the Academy Award Winning Philip Seymour Hoffman, Quentin the boss of Radio Rock, Gavin the greatest DJ in Britain, Midnight Mark, Doctor Dave and Young Carl who comes of age amidst the chaos of sex, drugs and rock n roll. The film features an unbelievable selection of music including The Beatles, The Stones, Beach Boys, Dusty Springfield, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, David Bowie, Otis Redding, Cat Stevens just to name a few. The film is laugh out loud funny and speaks to the rock n roll rebel in all of us.

NICKELBACK: LIVE AT STURGIS/ROB THOMAS: SOMETHING TO BE TOUR: LIVE AT RED ROCKS - BLU-RAY REVIEWS

Here is the curious thing about watching and reviewing things that come into my home: I give everything a fair shot. Everything.

It doesn’t matter what my bias is going into a viewing experience as I think it’s only right to see whether my preconceived notions of goodness or badness really are founded or not. I was wrong on both accounts when it came to Nickelback and Rob Thomas’ live efforts that were just released on Blu-ray.

What I wanted to find out when I saw these were coming out is to discover whether the technology could recreate the experience of what it is to be there with the performers and if the fidelity is worth it. In both cases the answer is yes as if you’re a fan of either band, I cannot purport to be one of either, the shows are something pretty impressive to behold on the home theater.

Rob Thomas’ concert, Something To Be Tour: Live At Red Rocks, showcases the lead singer of Matchbox Twenty to be adept at being the guy so many people are packing amphitheaters to see. The set list is admittedly a little old, this is taken from a 1997 concert and that puts this at almost two and a half years in the past and thus before a lot of the singles he’s known for as of late, but for someone like me who only knows him as the “Smooth” guy it was nonetheless all new to me. Point of fact, he gives the audience a little something different as he performs that title track acoustically and even for a punk-loving elitist like myself it was a solid reinterpretation. From the radio friendly hits of “This Is How A Heart Breaks” where you can see the guy is absolutely going down a path of nonthreatening bubble gum pop to the cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” where he can at least give those of us who don’t know anything about him a little something Rob has got something that not many other artists do: charisma. In the landscape of rock and roll, and I use that loosely here, you cannot begrudge a guy who knows what he’s good at and is able to ply that trade on stage. While this concert did not make me want to go out and buy any of the guy’s albums I still think it’s a worthy entry into anyone’s collection who is a fan as the Blu-ray delivers a flawless user experience.

Now, for better or worse, I can’t get Nickelback’s radio hits out of my head. When you have to share a radio in the car with someone else it is just inevitable that there are going to be songs you will be exposed to. Nickelback is that band, for some reason, and while I know they get bagged on in circles where it’s cool to make fun of guys who can draw a crowd you won’t get that from me. Nickelback: Live At Sturgis is just a fun romp down the path of guys who know what the audience wants and is giving it to them night after night if this show is any indication. No, they’re not singing about changing the world like Bono and they’re not talking about the pain of being alive like Tool is, these guys just want to drive their Camaro really fast and keep the windows down so their mullet can flap in the wind.

Again, just like Rob Thomas, I wish I could point a finger and giggle but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy watching these guys playing against video screens, pyrotechnics and putting on a good show. One of the things that separate this concert than many others that are put to disc is that there is a real effort put into making the experience more true to the feeling of a live event. There are multiple cameras employed, they incorporate the effects that are usually projected behind the band into the home presentation, and the direction is one that really feels kinetic. So, as you’re watching a song like “Animals” there is the real sense they were trying to make it feel exciting even if this show was being done for someone who was indifferent to their music.

It’s not for everyone but for those who like what Nickelback’s cooking this is a very solid entry into the field of filmed concerts. For me, it won me over for the course of its run time and while this may not mean much I have to say that it’s a very respectable effort.

IL DIVO - REVIEW

Has anyone read the short story Billy Budd by Herman Melville? In it, the story has a moment where a razor across the throat has a lot more significance than it does with just a guy getting a shave. It’s a sinister moment in the story’s progression and in this film, IL DIVO, the movie opens up with the titular character, Giulio Andreotti, getting a straight razor shave. The implications of what this means with regard to what will come after is rife with subtext.

Andreotti was Italy’s Prime Minister and has been loosely attached to corruption, murder, the Mafia, and enough political maneuvering that you wonder how this man has escaped any kind of indictment or conviction. The man did avoid being tacitly implicated in any wrongdoing but the film is a fascinating exploration about how deep his ties to all things shady really went. Played by Toni Servillo, who ought to be recongized for playing a character so fully that you wonder where Servillo ends and Andreotti begins, the movie takes a look at the complex web of Italian politics that has enough inside baseball to make anyone with an astute eye a little confused.

Where this foreign film really shines, however, is not only the performance of Servillo but it is the wonderfully shot and edited sequences that interpose visual nods to the stumpy looking features of the real Andreotti that makes this stand out from the bunch. The movie wants to take you on a journey to show why this was one of the most feared politicians ever to roam Italy. His dispassionate behavior and subdued manner in which he carries himself the real power of this movie is showing how one squat human being demanded so much respect from those who feared him.

While the director and the writer of the film, Paolo Sorrentino, has made a biopic that actually challenges the common notions of what a biopic should be the movie does start to get bogged down by the many many facts we are presented with throughout the film. The movie could absolutely be longer than the just shy of two hours that it is with as much as there is to delve into but Sorrentino packs more than enough in that to present a profile of a man who more than just mortal, he was powerful and knew it.

Some deets about the DVD release:

He has been called the Prince of Darkness, the Black Pope, the Fox, the Sphinx and the Hunchback, but the nickname Il Divo – the God – perhaps best fits the persona of Italy’s seven-time prime minister and “senator for life,” Giulio Andreotti, a figure who held sway over the entire Italian political landscape for decades. The scandals that plagued Andreotti’s career — charges of Mafia ties, bribery and deadly violence – would seem too appalling to be true, but viewers can decide for themselves when IL DIVO arrives on home video on October 27, 2009. MPI Home Video will release the cinematic masterpiece on both Blu-ray, with an SRP of $34.98, and on DVD, with an SRP of $27.98

Director Paolo Sorrentino’s film won the Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and won seven David di Donatello Awards ( Italy ’s Oscar). At its center is an unforgettable performance by Toni Servillo as the fearsome Andreotti, the right-leaning head of the long-ruling centrist Christian Democratic Party.

While the action of the film moves back and forth through the decades, it begins in 1991 as Andreotti is forming what would be his final administration as prime minister while fending off investigations into Mafia ties. He and his hardliner faction have retaken control of a country reeling from the brazen murders of high-level bankers, judges and journalists (this following the 1978 abduction of Andreotti’s left-leaning rival Aldo Moro; after Prime Minister Andreotti refused to negotiate with the kidnappers, Moro was murdered).

As his party crumbles in a nationwide bribery scandal, suspicion begins to fall on Andreotti himself as the center of a shocking conspiracy involving the Vatican , the Mafia and a secret neo-Fascist Masonic sect. In what is called “The Trial of the Century,” Italy ’s legendary “senator for life” (Andreotti retains the title still, at age 90) will stand accused of corruption, collusion and murder.

Adult Swim’s Dana Snyder and Quick Stop Entertainment’s Ken Plume set out to have a literate conversation between two pals, but inevitably devolve into a verbal, and funny, free-for-all full of bickering, infighting, and the special kind of male bonding that comes from conflict expressed through the podcast medium.

Actor/comedian/raconteur Dana Snyder, you’re certainly aware, is Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake, Squidbillies‘ Granny, Minoriteam’s Dr. Wang, and The Venture Bros.‘ Alchemist. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs (bat availability pending), you can keep tabs on him via his website, www.eyeofthesnyder.com.

Ken Plume is the editor-in-chief here at Quick Stop. He is a friend of Dana’s, as well as his arch-nemesis.

VISIT THE SNYDECAST EXPERIENCE

KEN P.D. SNYDECAST #120: A Funny Thing Happened - Ken & Dana return with a bit of dreamcasting and trivia about a Broadway comedy classic, in an episode sure to delight theater nerds, before thoughts turn to scheming that may or may not excite listeners.

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #120 (MP3 format) – 62.50 MB

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Got something to say? E-mail Dana & Ken at the Snydecast mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SNYDECAST ARCHIVES

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Elias Koteas would hate me. No matter how great an actor he is (and he is a great actor) or how accomplished he becomes, it is very hard not to imagine him with a hockey mask and a golf bag. He is like Frosted Mini-Wheats. The adult in me knows the guy has some of the most underrated acting chops ever; the kid in me watches films, such as The Fourth Kind, and screams “Pound their owl faces in with your cricket bat Casey Jones!”

He is so much more then the role of Casey, that still doesn’t erase the fact that he was a childhood hero to some of us. The first truly great “bad ass” delivered to my generation via an excellent kid’s movie. My point is that actors carry the baggage of past roles with them sometimes. That is expected, and fine, but this is why most “normal” mainstream movies, especially horror, don’t scare as much as they could. We are familiar with these people. Their faces are a constant visual reminder that it’s all make believe. When the step dad from Liar Liar saws his foot off, while you might be in shock at the concept, you know deep down that the Dred Pirate Roberts has still got ten toes. The Fourth Kind confuses me: why go through all the motions of watering down supposedly real footage with the baggage of Hollywood actors? Why even go so far as to blatantly make that part of the marketing campaign?

The Fourth Kind is going to be looked at as another “found footage” movie, especially in the recent wake of Paranormal Activity. However, two very big things separate it from the pack: the footage is supposedly real, and the footage was never lost. In short, this non-sequel-but-titled-confusingly-and-probably-deliberately-like-a-sequel to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is about a supposedly real psychologist, Dr. Abigail Tyler, who is investigating the strange occurrences of alien abductions in Nome, Alaska circa the year 2000. Milla Jovovich plays the title role of Dr. Tyler in the in-movie dramatization of the actual events. Elias Koteas and Will Patton act out the supposedly real events along side Jovovich, all of them doing an admirable job with what they have to work with. Now this is what makes this film so unique: it’s simultaneously shows us the real and the dramatized version of the doctor’s recorded sessions with the supposed alien abductees. The movie even goes so far as to often split the screen in half (or fourths!) and shows the real tape, versus the dramatization of the tape. In many ways it makes the same editing mistakes that Ang Lee’s Hulk did years ago. It is very unique, as I am not quite sure something like this has ever been done before, yet it is also very tiresome, confusing to the eyes, and like a giant exercise in futility. Why do we need Milla saying the same lines simultaneously with the real Abigail while they both are on screen? The answer is that we don’t. They fill in the gaps between the supposedly “actual footage” of the story with the Hollywood actors. One would assume that the gaps being filled in are from the mouth of the actual Abigail Tyler herself. So in conjunction with the “actual footage and audio” you are also getting dramatized accounts of what supposedly happened in between.

Why water it all down? Sure if you want to release this in theaters as a “film” you have to give people more then a Discovery Channel UFO special…or do you? I’ll admit that Paranormal Activity made me lose an entire night of sleep, probably for the first time in a decade. This being ever more embarrassing because I was fully aware that it was completely fake. That is not a critique of the movie, I am just saying that it got to me, and horror movies never do. It has something to do with this low budget genre. Any time where no “Hollywood” is present, and no sign of the “evil” is shown on camera it screws with the mind. If Paranormal Activity had showed the demon, I wouldn’t have lost a wink of sleep, if we saw the Blair Witch I probably wouldn’t have flinched, regardless of the quality of the beast (sorry Rick Baker.) The irony being, the less visceral the villain is, the more visceral the scares are. This brings me to all my questions concerning The Fourth Kind. If you have “actual footage,” in many ways similar to the “fake found footage” of Paranormal Activity or Blair Witch, why take all the piss out of it and inject heaps and mounds of Hollywood into its core, wasting all the time and money in the process? Then they go so far as to show them side by side, as if to say “SEE, LOOK, THEY MATCH!!!” As an audience member are we suppose to be thinking “yes, they do match, are the accurate performances what I am suppose to be focusing on?” Who wouldn’t rather just watch the straight up, untouched videos of these regression psychology sessions? I would, and it would be leaps and bounds more terrifying.

The backbone of the entire documentary/dramatization/film/docu-drama-film is a supposedly real interview with Dr. Tyler that happens long after the events in 2000. This interview footage, for me, was the scariest part of the experience. If all of this actually happened then this women has been completely put through the ringer, so I don’t want to outright insult something so trivial, but her face is disturbing. Really disturbing. In fact her facial features and shape are so “alien-esque” that I started to wonder if the twist of the whole Fourth Kind experience was going to be that it’s fake, then her face would start to distort CGI-style, then cut to credits. Her overall look and demeanor is what actually started to make me almost assuredly doubt the claims of the movie. She is perfectly emaciated and morbidly colored to the point where if they were making The Fourth Kind as a farce from the beginning they would have cast this woman and through makeup made her look exactly like she does. Also, while I can’t personally give any validity to its claims, this can be found in the trivia section of the film’s IMDB page:

According to promotional materials from Universal, the film is framed around a psychologist named Abigail Tyler who interviewed traumatized patients in Nome, but Alaska state licensing examiner Jan Mays says she can’t find records of an Abigail Tyler ever being licensed in any profession in Alaska. Ron Adler, CEO and director of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute and Denise Dillard, president of the Alaska Psychological Association say they’ve never heard of Abigail Tyler.

One very questionable aspect of this whole ordeal to consider is what the term “Actual Footage” implies. The subtitles make constant note of when “actual footage” or audio is being presented. Actual footage? All footage is actual footage isn’t it? The footage of Jaws popping out of the water, in Jaws, is actual footage. Sure, maybe this is “actual footage” of a psychologist’s regression therapy session in 2000, but that has really no bearing on the fact that the people in the video aren’t simply actors. Yes, it is a bit ridiculous of me to assume this movie, this possible farce, was 9 years in the making, but if they are pulling on our leg hard enough to say these abductions are real, why would they sweat over saying that footage shot with an old camcorder in 2008 happened in 2000? It should simply be given consideration, due to the ease at which language is often used to deceive. Yes, it could just be nitpicking, and common sense should dictate that the “actual footage” is simply film or video stock that wasn’t shot with the intent of story telling.

***SPOILERS START HERE***

The “actual footage” itself is very creepy, however it felt produced. I obviously don’t know the truth, nor will I probably ever, but something about the video footage seemed perfectly imperfect. It’s hard to explain. When ever the patients start to recount what they think they saw, the video fills with distortion (supposedly caused by aliens.) However, there is just enough clarity in the distortion to tell what is happening, and what is happening seems very…cliché. We get loud, digitized, thundering voices, screams of terror, mouths opening extremely wide whilst howling, and a man levitating off a bed. While all of that is filled with the creeps, all of it is also very Hollywood. Also, perhaps it is just me, but it felt as though the mania happening beneath the distortion was digitally touched up. It is obviously very difficult to explain, some of the lighting in those shots just seemed manufactured, as often seen with special effects in the digital age. I am fully open to that not being the case.

***SPOILERS STOP HERE***

If there was a final assessment to make about The Fourth Kind it would be of a missed opportunity. They ladled too much Hollywood gravy all over this delicious, if synthetic, steak and made it just taste like wet salt. However, it would be interesting to find out this story from the point of view of the abductors. There’s a great Kids In The Hall sketch that involves the boring lives of aliens who spend every day anal probing abductees. They complain about their unfulfilling jobs as would a dock worker, or an office temp. That KITH skit was in my head during the entire duration of The Fourth Kind. As the human’s are tortured and screaming with nightmares and getting abducted, are the aliens just doing their boring day jobs?

Thanks for reading. Now go rent, buy, or watch a lot of Elias Koteas movies. He’s a great talent, you won’t regret it.

Now it’s time for a chicken sandwich.

Oh no! Just when you thought it was safe to hang out at the Quick Stop…

Cabin Fever (hosted by the twisted souls Brian Fitzpatrick and Aaron Poole) is the result of having too much time on your hands and access to your local community radio station.

Over the course of an hour, they manage to trawl the depths of good taste, plus throw some music in. How much more could you want from a podcast?… Quality? Oh… we didn’t think of that.

Enjoy! And we hope our cross Atlantic friends can understand the Irish accent

Hugs and Kisses,
Aaron P. + Rev. Fitzy

CABIN FEVER #79: Horrorthon - To celebrate the spooky season, Brian gives us a run down of all the different flicks he caught during the recent scary film festival in Dublin. while Aaron listens intently and admits he doesn’t really like horror films. Pretentiousness follows.

[CONTENT WARNING]: Explicit contents! We say every naughty word you can think of. You have been warned!

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #79 (MP3 format) – 59.79 MB

SUBSCRIBE
Subscribe to this Podcast via iTunes

Got something to say? E-mail Aaron & Brian at the Cabin Fever mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE CABIN FEVER ARCHIVES

##

We here at Quick Stop Entertainment are true lovers of music, in all its forms. We’re also quite keen on the spirit of competition, and of spurring creativity through said competition.

To that end, we launched a unique form of creative combat here at the Stop.

In this age of manufactured and painfully earnest talent contests, we’ve decided to instead shine a light on the quirky, quixotic underworld of musicians that don’t get nearly the attention they deserve.

Ah, but I did mention that there was a competition involved…

From now until 11:59pm EST on SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7th, we’ll be accepting sign-ups from any and all musicians across this here internet. We have 25 slots open - All you have to do is be one of the first 25 to apply via the form below, and you’re in. THE LIST OF CHALLENGERS AND THE FIRST TASK WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9th, 2009.

Once those participants have been announced, the showdown will commence.

Like a songwriting version of Iron Chef, the competitors will be presented with a very specific songwriting challenge. They’ll be given one week to complete their songs - however they see fit, within the parameters set forth - after which time the entries will be uploaded to Quick Stop to be voted on by you, the audience.

Oh, and what do we call this competition?

MASTERS OF SONG FU

Let us not forget the very special Masters of MASTERS OF SONG FU - artists like Jonathan Coulton, Paul & Storm, Neil Innes, Doc Hammer, & The RiffTones. Think of them as the iron chefs of Song Fu - one of which will be revealed as your ultimate challenger.

And if you triumph, not only will you win remarkable (and potentially off-putting) bragging rights and a clutch of fantastic mystery prizes, you will also become the proud owner of the magnificent, one-of-a-kind MASTER OF SONG FU TROPHY.

Remember, you must be able to realize a song both lyrically and musically. This competition is open to both singer/songwriters and bands - but since space is limited, only enter if you truly accept the challenge. As stated above, we’ll be accepting the first 25 valid applications we receive.

Are you ready to bring your Fu? If so, fill out the form below:

SIGN-UP FOR THIS ROUND HAS CLOSED.

Note: Competitors will be notified via e-mail of their selection.
If you have any problems submitting your entry via the form above, you can also e-mail the entry information to songfu @ quickstopentertainment.com (taking out the spaces, naturally) with the subject line “Song Fu”.

In conjunction with Fox Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of ALIENS IN THE ATTIC on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, November, 18th.

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on November, 18th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

Welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV where I’m starting to wonder if I fell in love with FLASHFORWARD too soon.

The pilot episode of FLASHFORWARD did exactly the job that a lot of pilots are supposed to do in that it sucked me in with a decent mystery and gave me enough questions that made me want to see the story that it set up. Everyone balcks out for two minutes and seventeen seconds, some people have very lucid visions of themselves around 1o PM six months in the future. Scenarios are set up that seem impossible: a dead daughter is seen alive, a loving wife is happily involved with another man and so on. Some people have no vision at all.

Instantly the questions chime in that make you want to tune in week after week. Will the visions come true? If the visions come true how will these characters get from here to there? What will happen to those with out visions? Great questions, but only if you like the way you get the answers.

From a television series stand-point I want you to understand that I think the show is great. The performances delivered by the characters are solid, they are committed. The question now, however, is can the writers pull it off?

With a show that is working off of this complicated of a premise you really have to make a decision: are the visions inevitable or are they a future that is not set in stone? Regardless of the two approaches you can, from week to week, play a game of cat and mouse where you dangle aspects that support both approaches to leave the mystery in place. I think, however, that this is more of the easu approach because it allows you to provide too much filler that can come in trying to pad out an entire season in a method where the viewer feels like they are getting a little jerked around.

The gutsy approach, in my opinion, is to go with the former and stick with it. Decide the future seen is inevitable and tell us this amazing story of how people get from point A to point B. Just because we know the way a future part of the story occurs doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the journey of traversing the story. BABYLON 5 proved that giving us a glimpse of the future doesn’t stop us from watching, it only wets our appetite to find out how we get there.

Sadly the evidence of the episodes we’ve seen so far has proven that they are going with the easy approach. I can’t blame them for it since they have at least a 22 episode order to fill and I’m just a guy that watches what they turn out.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way let’s talk a little about the more immediate future.

MONDAY

NBC - 8:00 PM: Remember during that first good season of HEROES when HIRO fell in love with and lost CHARLIE at the hands of SYLAR? Remember how he went back in time and tried so many times to save her and no matter what he couldn’t do it? The writers are sweeping that all under the rug as HIRO goes back againt to try to save CHARLIE and cash in on the popularity of JAYMA MAYS.

TLC - 9:00 PM: TLC continues to keep the GOSSELIN train a rollin’ with the special interview show by NATALIE MORALES called KATE: HER STORY.

MTV - 8:00 PM: It isn’t every day where you see one animated show building a two episode arc around the making fun of another animated show. Repeat or not that’s one reason to recommend the CARTOON WARS episodes of SOUTH PARK.

TUESDAY

ABC - 8:00 PM: No, your TV didn’t travel that far back in time on Sunday, the V that is on tonight is a re-imagining of the 80’s mini and actual series. Hopefully this will suck far less.

NBC - 8:00 PM: THE BIGGEST LOSER goes to Washington, D.C. and the contestants even get a tour of the White House kitchen.

WEDNESDAY

ABC - 9:30 PM: If you aren’t already watching MODERN FAMILY than I recommend that you get caught up on HULU.COM and then tune in to ABC at 9:30. It’s just about the only thing good on TV tonight.

THURSDAY

ABC - 8:00 PM: Complaints up above aside I’ll still be tuning in to FLASHFORWARD tonight.

BRAVO - 10:00 PM: THE REAL WIVES OF ORANGE COUNTRY returns tonight. Who would have thought that these cosmetically enhanced ladies of Southern California would be thought of as the sane group?

FRIDAY

THE CW - 8:00 PM: It’s always emberrassing when unexpected family drops by, but when it is your long-dead father from your home world? Tune in to SMALLVILLE to try to make sense of it.

CARTOON NETWORK - 8:00 PM: SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS is a decade old and even the KRUSTY KRAB is having an anniversary celebration. 

SATURDAY

BRAVO - 9:00 PM: Even though KATHY GRIFFIN: BALLS OF STEEL aired earlier in the week I purposely saved it since there is so little on Saturday nights. Just thought I’d share that.

FOX - 11:00 PM: It’s the premiere of THE WANDA SYKES SHOW and if this show is anywhere near the quality of her work on THE CHRIS ROCK SHOW or CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM than we’re in for a real treat.

SUNDAY

FOX - 7:30 PM: Tonight it is official, SETH MCFARLANE takes of the FOX network tonight with AMERICAN DAD, FAMILY GUY, FAMILY GUY PRESENTS: SETH & ALEX’S ALMOST LIVE COMEDY SHOW, and THE CLEVELAND SHOW.

ABC - 8:00 PM: Tonight on EXTREME MAKEOVER: HOME EDITION KELLIE PICKLER is a special guest. Here’s hoping they just give her a mic because anything else means they’ll just be out next year to replace the whole house again.

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Quick Stop by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

There’ve been many, many attempts over the years, but I think we’ve finally gotten a definitive, comprehensive documentary about those 5 loveable English lads (and one American) in Monty Python: Almost The Truth - The Lawyer’s Cut (Eagle Rock, Not Rated, DVD-$29.99 SRP). With 6 hours of actual, bona fide documentary and scads of cut footage, I certainly walked away satisfied that I’d gotten as whole a picture of the group as we’re ever likely to get now. Bonus materials include the aforementioned bonus footage, plus memorable sketches and a Terry Gilliam picture gallery. A Blu-Ray edition ($39.99 SRP) is also available, with identical bonus material.

Haven’t you always wanted a monkey? Even if you don’t have a million dollars, you can still snag yourself a nifty little beanie version of Thinkgeek’s loveable mascot, Timmy the Monkey ($6.99). Perfect for desks, shelves, gifts, or even - imagine this - kids.

Previously available only in the megaset, you can now get the recent documentaries Before The Flying Circus & Monty Python Conquers America in Monty Python: The Other British Invasion (A&E, Not Rated, DVD-$19.95 SRP), and both are worth a look-see for fans.

A surprising and welcome arrival on DVD is the first volume collecting On The Road with Charles Kuralt (Acorn, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) - the Emmy-winning travelogue that featured Kuralt, a motor home, and destinations and personalities across the breadth of the United States. The 3-disc set features 18 episodes, plus updates.

Certainly not a household name like Ford, Hitchcock, or Capra but deserving proper attention is the work of writer/director Samuel Fuller, which is celebrated in the new Samuel Fuller Collection (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$79.95 SRP). The set collects all 7 of the films he made for Columbia - It Happened In Hollywood, Adventure In Sahara, Power Of The Press, Shockproof, Scandal Sheet, The Crimson Kimono, & Underworld USA - with featurettes from fans Martin Scorsese, Curtis Hanson, Tim Robbins, & Wim Wenders.

While not up to the audio-visual oomph of a modern series, there’s something about seeing the “best you’ve ver seen it” of The Prisoner: The Complete Series (A&E, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$99.95 SRP) in high definition. The show itself is still a gem, and the 5-disc set is packed with a feature-length documentary, featurettes, audio commentaries, commercial bumpers, an image gallery, and more.

Kids today have no idea what seemingly-endless cartoon fun Saturday mornings used to be before the rise of cable and home video. For just a taste of what it was like, Warners has put together both Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1960s Volume 2 & Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 2 (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP each), 2-disc sets featuring over 5 hours of Hanna-Barbera and Warners cartoons that evoke memories of that bygone era. The sets also contain documentaries on Magilla Gorilla and Shazzan.

It’s an interesting storytelling device, to present the machinations of the Battlestar Galactica finale from the side of the Cylons - I only wish that I cared about the show enough to be interested in Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP). Still, there’s a massive fanbase, and this is for you. Bonus features include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, and featurettes. A Blu-Ray edition ($39.98 SRP) is also available, with identical bonus materials.

Did you know that Barbara Stanwyck once had a TV show? Neither did I. But you can view the star-studded anthology series in the first volume of The Barbara Stanwyck Show (E1 Entertainment, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). The 3-disc set features 15 uncut episodes.

I was hoping the teaming of Woody Allen with Larry David would provide some kind of transcendent comedy, but Whatever Works (Sony, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$39.95 SRP) winds up being just an adequate affair about a sarcastic misanthrope (David, naturally) whose life has a bit of sunshine shone in when a runaway (Evan Rachel Wood) lands on his doorstep.

Creepy kid genre? A surprisingly robust number of films. Add The Orphan (Warner Bros., Rated R, DVD-$29.98 SRP) to that list, as its driving force is the titular creepy kid, an orphan with dead adoptive families in her wake. Might be awkward for the new adoptive family. Creepy, right? Yeah. Bonus materials include additional scenes & an alternate ending. A Blu-Ray edition ($35.99 SRP) is also available with identical bonus materials.

As I dug into the suddenly teenaged animated escapades of Tony Stark in Iron Man: Armored Adventures (Genius, Not Rated, DVD-$26.96 SRP), I could never figure out exactly what made the age regression necessary, besides a foolish executive note that it must somehow make him more relatable to kids. Ummm - he’s a superhero in super-armor. Live with it. The first volume contains 6 episodes, plus music videos.

Yeah, I’m sorry - I still can’t fathom what the appeal of the adventures of Peter Pan’s formerly jealous, vixenish pixie is to young girls, but I’m sure they’ll snap up the bland, CG Tinkerbell And The Lost Treasure (Walt Disney, Rated G, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP). It’s available in the now-convenient Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack, with bonus features including featurettes, deleted scenes, and a music video.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

-Ken Plume

##

JOLIET, IL - Dan Aykroyd is on a mission from vodka. The Blues Brother is cruising around the country in a Damnation Alley RV promoting his Crystal Skull premium vodka. He rolled into my town and I was compelled to see the man.

He was appearing at a liquor store on a Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. What sort of crowd could he draw? I showed up at 1 p.m. with my four month old designated driver. There was already 400 people in line. Another 300 people end up behind us. Luckily Dan’s traveling partner announced that even though Dan was schedule to leave at 4:30, he’d be signing his bottles until the last person went home happy.

Why not? Each bottle cost $50. I’ve been told that there’s only two types of vodka in the world: Good vodka and vodka that makes you go blind and piss blood. Premium vodka is merely paying extra for fancy packaging. Luckily Dan chose a packaging worth the extra bucks: a crystal skull. And the people in line were buying them up between 2 to 12 bottles each.

From what I heard, the store sold 1,500 bottles during Dan’s visit. With around $75,000 in the register, this would have been the liquor store to knock off. This also explained about six cops keeping an eye on Dan and the till.

Dan was a signing machine. The line moved fast although it still took three hours in 91 degrees heat to get to the front of the line. Our time with Dan was short. A person in front of me asked Dan about Ghostbusters III. He said things were looking good, but couldn’t say anything else. This was just after Kanye’s infamous interruption of MTV Music Video Awards. Dan had hosted the first ceremony.

“No. That was real team back when I was doing it,” Aykroyd said. “The most exciting thing there was Madonna and her wedding dress.”

Here’s a video tribute to the Schiller Reel about taking a baby to the liquor store to meet a comedy legend.

Dennis Hof wrote to remind me that Cathouse: Sex, Guys and Videotape starts airing on HBO this Oct. 22 at 11 p.m. The ladies of the Bunny Ranch get their hands on the cameras to show their life. It’ll be on HBO OnDemand for those who can’t stay up late.

Hof, the owner of the Bunny Ranch and star of HBO’s Cathouse reality series, also called up the Party Favors hotline for a chat about the latest installment in the series. So what gets exposed? Sadly, the end of a romance gets captured on tape. This and many subjects get discussed while Dennis is being driven to his hotel in Chicago. We also get the scoop about Dennis’ Subway dream.

The new edition of The Girls Next Door ought to be just called Rebound Mansion. The twins are probably more interesting when they get violent. The third woman is so far as forgettable as a middle Duggar daughter. This is what Hef’s banging at the Mansion? Sure I speculated that things weren’t right with Holly, Bridget and Kendra after the first few seasons. Mostly because there wasn’t that decadent angle to the trio and Hef. Is there a bisexual angle to these new threesome? The twins do like to get next to each other and touch while naked. But they have yet to set their boundaries on camera. Do they mind threesomes with the “we’ll be in the bed together with you, but we won’t touch each other” rule? Or do they live in mortal fear of returning to the day jobs at that Hooter’s knock-off wing joint that they’ll do whatever Hef desires? And how come Hef hasn’t enticed these girls into getting implants? Mankini’s got bigger breasts.

On competition shows that eliminate contestants over the course of the season, can producers please put an “X” through the contestants that had been eliminated before each episode.

My source at Entertainment Tonight sent me a few of their fact or fiction teasers that couldn’t make it onto the air.

Fact or Fiction: Did The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons beat to death a TMZ cameraman with a bust of Sean Penn and bury the guy’s body behind Mel Tillis’ mansion? Since Mel hasn’t complained about a strange smell, Mary Hart’s calling it fiction.

Fact or Fiction: Did Jay Leno buy Nic Cage’s comic book collection and give them away to the cast of Glee? That’s also Fiction.

Fact or Fiction: Is Adam Lambert really straight and secretly married with two kids? Since he’s not denying our report, we’re going to just let it slide as a Fact.

Now that Miley Cyrus is off Twitter, I guess I’ll spend the newly found free time drinking rubbing alcohol.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Blu-ray gives the high def love to this summer’s mindless fun. The Decepticons return for a second round of mechanical thrashing with the Autobots. The Decepticons take Shia LaBeouf hostage as part of their plot. But mostly it’s about seeing how many ways they can get Megan Fox to bend over. She’s the 21st century Caroline Munro. Is it worth relaying the plot? It’s basically Rock’em Sock’em Robots with Megan Fox bending over. And that’s enough to make it worthy of Blu-ray visuals at my estate. There’s plenty of bonus features including spending a day with Michael Bay in Tokyo. There’s also a celebration of the 25 Years of Transformers. There’s easter eggs for those who hunt.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra Blu-ray reminds me that anytime you can knock down the Eiffel Tower, I’ll watch. I’ll hit the rewind and slo-mo to watch that Paris landmark bite the dust. The 1080p detail of the crunch is a great way to show off your new TV. I don’t hate the French, but I can’t get enough of watching that Erector set tower go boom. When Cobra nails it with the metal eating spores, it’s a disasterpiece worthy of Irwin Allen. The film is a semi-throwback to the animated series. But I’m not sold on Channing Tatum. Luckily there’s Dennis Quaid giving us his paycheck scowl as the general. Sienna Miller finally has a worthy role as the Baroness. She can rule my world in that costume. But once she whines about Pittsburgh, she’s out of the bed. The movie is about as fluffy mindless as Transformers. They make a good double feature if you’re unable to get off the beanbag. The bonus features include an extensive Making Of doc and a piece on the FX crew. There’s also a digital copy so you could watch the Eiffel Tower collapse on your iPod while your on the top of the Eiffel Tower.

It’s a Wonderful Life Blu-ray makes this holiday treat sparkle on the widescreen. They’ve included both the colorized and black & white versions on the disc. The colorized one reminds me of tinted postcards from the ’40s. This is almost as important to the holiday season as egg nog and a restraining order. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed sparkle in the 1080p image. You might fear falling into the water when the gym floor opens up. There’s also the documentary from the recent DVD release. Since the movie is no longer public domain, it’s nice to have the Blu-ray handy to run it any night during the holiday season.

Forrest Gump: Sapphire Series Blu-ray brings the Oscar winner to Hi-Def. The film was revolutionary at the time as it used so much CGI for pumping up shots. They expanded crowds, inserted extra helicopters, removed legs and made JFK come alive. It showed that these new FXs could be used for more than making dinosaurs roam the Earth. Tom Hanks is the mentally challenged guy who wanders through every major historical moments. There’s bonus features on the second disc with “An Evening with Forrest Gump” as the highlight. Director Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks, Gary Sinise and screenwriter Eric Roth talk at USC about the movie and its impact. Ben Fong-Torres contributes pods about the music used in the soundtrack. He’s a real person and not merely a character in Almost Famous.

It’s Garry Shandling’s Show: The Complete Collection is the best TV DVD of the year. I had forgotten how great Garry’s original Showtime series was. The series dared to completely deconstruct the sitcom by making everything inside the soundstage part of the story. He didn’t want us to forget that this was an artificial world where he truly was the most powerful being. The audience in the studio’s fair game. They’re not just there to contribute a live laughtrack. During one scene, Garry leaves his apartment set and the crowd wanders out of the peanut gallery to party in Garry’s living room. During “Garry Throws a Surprise Party,” the audience’s shouting scares Garry’s mom into having a heart attack. “The Graduate” has Norman Fell help Garry recreate the Dustin Hoffman movie when he tangles with Mrs. Robertson. While Garry enjoys exposing that it’s all just a show, the scripts are still entertaining. “The Last Show” has Garry dying. Tony Danza gives the eulogy. But the network can’t let Garry die cause he owes them two more show. Tying this into the column, Dan Aykroyd plays off his straight role in “Driving Miss Garry.” The boxset has all 72 episodes spread over 16 DVDs. There’s tons of bonus features to let us know how Garry and Alan Zweibel got away with a series that would have been canned after three episodes on network TV. If you’re a fan of Larry Sanders and Seinfeld, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show: The Complete Series deserves a space on your DVD shelf. Shout! Factory has done a perfect job in presenting this underplayed series.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: (Those Aren’t Pillows Edition) gives a deluxe edition to John Hughes’ last watchable directorial effort. This is fine viewing before Thanksgiving cooking begins. Steve Martin gets stuck on his way home to enjoy Thanksgiving with his family. His only hope is John Candy. Things get weird on this journey including the line “Those aren’t pillows.” The bonus features include Getting There is Half the Fun: The Story of Planes Trains and Automobiles, John Hughes for Adults, A Tribute to John Candy and Deleted Scene - “Airplane Food.” They must have finished this up before they could make a feature on Remembering John Hughes.

White Christmas: Anniversary Edition is perfect for any time you need a little holiday tunes on the big set. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney unleash the Irving Berlin songbook including the title song and “It’s Cold Outside.” This is the first Vistavision film and the details show even on DVD. The second disc has plenty of bonus features including “Backstage Stories from White Christmas,” “Rosemary’s Old Kentucky Home,” “Bing Crosby: Christmas Crooner” and a commentary track with Clooney. Truly a sweet holiday film about the things army buddies will do for each other.

G.I. Joe Resolute brings together the episodes that aired on Adult Swim over the summer. This gets even more action-packed than the original cartoon while maintaining the same GI Joe team characters. The characters bleed when shot and they even die when shot enough. Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow throwdown in overdrive. The plot deals with Cobra Commander once more trying to take over the world. Naturally GI Joe has to stop him. Why does anyone want to take over the entire world? What’s the point in controlling Detroit?

Mission: Impossible: The Seventh and Final TV Season wraps up the greatest espionage series. These would be the final times the message would self-destruct for Peter Graves, Greg Morris and Peter Lupus. The main cast change isn’t a complete replacement like in previous seasons. Barbara Anderson (Ironside) alternates episodes with Linda Day George as the female agent. Anderson’s a flipped mobster moll so she’s got history when they set up gangsters. The prime episode is “Cocaine.” William Shatner is a mobster smuggling the white powder into America via art. His connection is Gregory Sierra (Det. Chano on Barney Miller). Charles Napier (Squidbillies) gets an uncredited role. “Speed” gives another great supporting role from Claude Akins. The best part about this season is Greg Morris’s boss ’70s haircut. After these 22 episodes, there’s no more assignments for the original IMF.

Hawaii Five-O: The Seventh Season is not even close to the final season. Jack Lord beat down bad guys around Honolulu for 12 seasons. Season 7 has Al Harrington vanish in the middle of the season. Because of a lack of real personality to his character, he’s not really missed. “The Young Assassins” has Larry Wilcox (CHiPs) as part of a killing crew. “We Hang Our Own” has Leslie Nielsen (Police Squad as a badass ranch owner. Wo Fat pops up for “Presenting…in the Center Ring…Murder.” He’s going to kill a Chinese official that’s accompanied by James Wong (Kung Fu Panda). “Hit Gun for Sale” has Sal Mineo (Rebel Without a Cause) as a mobster’s son ready to plant a flag in Hawaii. They’re supposedly remaking Hawaii Five-O so this might mean the release schedule might be sped up for the final five boxsets.

Vega$: The First Season, Volume 1 brings us the action from middle school Vegas of 1978. Michael Mann (Heat and Miami Vice) wrote the pilot movie about a private detective in Sin City. Dan Tanna (Robert Urich) a major swinger living in a converted warehouse behind Circus Circus. “High Roller” has him hunting down the murderer of a runaway teen that turned to hooking. Can’t go wrong with a visit from Scatman Crothers (The Shining). Greg Morris (Mission: Impossible) is Tanna’s hook up on the Vegas police force. “Centerfold” brings Tony Curtis onto his team. The real treat is guest star moments from Abe Vigoda and Vic Tayback (Alice. “The Pageant” is a nightmare episode for fans of The Brady Bunch. Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) is raped while competing in a beauty contest. Mr. Brady (Robert Reed) hires Tanna to find her attacker. It wasn’t Sam the Butcher. Vega$ brings us a land of glitz, disco and polyester. Double down on this boxset.

The Fugitive: Season Three, Volume One takes us beyond the halfway mark in the pursuit of Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen). “Wings of an Angel” puts Kimble inside a prison. He’s a patient in the hospital after capturing an escaped prisoner on a bus. Greg Morris is the prison orderly that knows his secret. Harold Gould (Rhoda) is the doctor. Star Trek fans will get to see James Doohan as a doctor in “Middle of the Heatwave.” DeForest Kelley appears in “Three Cheers for Little Boy Blue” along with Ed Asner and Richard Anderson (Six Million Dollar Man). William Shatner finally beams down for “Stranger in the Mirror.” Clint Howard burns in “Set Fire to a Straw Man.” Norman Fell (Mr. Roper) is investigating a cop killer in the town. Bruce Dern makes his fourth series appearance in “The Good Guys and the Bad Guys.” James Hong nails the “End of the Line.” These are 15 pressure filled episodes. The Fugitive: Season Three, Volume Two comes out on Dec. 8. This means 2010 should give us the colorful end when Kimble finds the One-Armed Man.

Mannix: The Third Season brings 25 more cases from the files of America’s hard knocks detective. He solves case with his gut, the assistance of Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher) and police contact Robert Reed (Mr. Brady). There’s also Larry Linville (M*A*S*H’s Frank Burns) as the prickly cop. “Return to Summer Grove” takes Mannix to his hometown to solve a case and patch things up with his dad. “Who Killed Me?” gives us Batgirl Yvonne Craig. Mannix has to help a rich guy uncover his potential killer. “Who Is Sylvia?” turns out to be Jessica Walter (Arrested Development). “Murder Revisited” has a murder in talkshow. Don DeFore (Hazel) doesn’t come off as a great TV father here. “War of Nerves” has a kidnapping turn into a potential nerve gas attack. Hugh Beaumont (Leave It to Beaver) is in the middle of this instant death. Best to watch Mannix with your favorite Scotch.

Tales From the Darkside: The Second Season give more little chills and thrills from the George Romero (Night of the Living Dead) executive produced series. “The Impressionist” kicks off the season with Chuck McCann (Far Out Space Nuts in a starring role. He’s a nightclub performer brought in by the government to understand an alien. One of Chuck’s finest moments in TV. Little Seth Green pops up in “Monsters In My Room.” He’s got to convince his family that there really are creepy crawly things under his bed. Has this been spoofed on Robot Chicken? “The Trouble with Mary Jane” is two exorcists battling to get the demons out of a girl so they can collect $50K. Phyllis Diller and Lawrence Tierney (Reservoir Dogs) possess the episode.

The Guardian: The First Season is where America first fell for the sly Simon Baker (The Mentalist). He’s a party hard lawyer who gets nailed on drug use. He’s stuck with the burden of 1,500 hours of community service. How is he going to do that and be a fat cat lawyer? It’s hard. He gets stuck doing pro bono work for kids that need legal help. He has to balance little kids with major corporate takeovers. Naturally working with the kids gives him a bit of a soul after 22 episodes this first season. The series lasted three seasons.

Numb3rs: The Fifth Season gets us more FBI action with mathletic determination. Charlie (David Krumholtz) back his security clearance. He’s back to helping out his FBI agent brother Don (Rob Morrow) find the bad guys. Their dad Alan (Judd Hirsch) ends up coaching basketball. Charlie almost swaps jobs, but realizes that this is his place. Don discovers a knife is in his back. The incident screws up the delicate mind of Charlie. Agent Nikki Betencourt (Sophina Brown) joins the team. The big finale, “Angels and Devils” has Amita being snatched by a cult. They have to go save her before she is forced to marry the guy and thus block Charlie’s intentions. The 22 episodes are on 6 DVDs.

The L Word: The Complete Final Season brings to the end Showtime’s semi-soap opera about a group of lesbians in Los Angeles. The eight episodes hinge on the investigation of who killed Jenny Schecter (Mia Kirshner). The whole season is a flashback as Lucy Lawless investigates. Xena is going to get to the bottom of this. Mia’s major storylines deal with her love for Shane (Katherine Moennig) and new book. She’s upset that her Les Girls movie was yanked away from her. Jennifer Beals and Laurel Holloman want another baby. This time through adoption. But it’s hard for them to find a willing pregnant woman. There’s also a tale of what happens when a couple’s new friend leads to those unexpected emotions. Its hard to enjoy the season knowing that sweet Mia Kirshner was going to end up dead. The show will be missed. Although mostly because of those great scenes when Mia got nasty with the ladies. Now how am I supposed to get my Pam Grier fix? A nice bonus feature is Jennifer Beals personal photos from the set.

Lost Tapes is a series from Animal Planet that blends In Search of…. monster hunts with Blair Witch Project home video action. Supposedly the videotape presented in the show is from people who have had accidental encounters with cryptozoological creatures. This isn’t for hard edge reality documentary fans since it’s mostly fiction with a bit of archival footage to explain the unknown. It’s as real as The Hills. It’s ultimately a low-fi X-Files. “Chupacabra” has a family sneaking over the border get attacked by the goat sucking critter. “Big Foot” has us wondering if the park ranger is being stalked by the beast or a bear poacher who is also a peeping tom. They also explore The Mothman, Hellhounds and Megaconda. The two disc set contains the first season. Don’t watch this with the lights out after downing a bottle of tequila. You’ll fear the Chupacabra.

Greg Giraldo: Midlife Vices lets the star of all the Comedy Central Roasts use 66 minutes to do more than riff on Andy Dick. Giraldo does take things to the blissful absurd. He ponders the irony of slipping in a handicap shower and becoming handicapped. He’s an ex-lawyer and his routine sounds like the most amazing closing statement as he summarizes his life. He gets manic while impersonating the airline steward passing out the snacks. He gets nasty about people who declare “my dog is like my kid.” He asks, “How many people have a dog cause they were too drunk to pull out?” There’s plenty of moments to quote on the back of the school bus. The true excitement is when Giraldo catches an audience member sleeping. The bonus features include his pilot for “Adult Content” and an earlier special.

Nick Swardson: Seriously, Who Farted? gives us an hour with the Dane Cook of his generation. You might know Nick as Terry, the gay rollerskating misfit on Reno 911. He’s also part of Adam Sandler’s crew. He wrote Grandma’s Boy. He gives a nice warning about testing the power of pot brownies. But he stops short of really taking it to the next level. He doesn’t take his routines to the point of no turning back. He’s like a drunk guy has to continually pump the keg and constantly blather. If you loved Grandma’s Boy, you’ll adore his tale of sucking face with Shirley Jones. The bonus features includes Terry’s Christmas album. There’s a trailer for 28 Drinks Later about boozing zombies. The funniest thing on the disc is “Nick Swardson: Timeless Comic.” The fake biography does go for the kill in a few places.

Legend of the Seeker: The Complete First Season is a fantasy series about how a lowly woodsman (Craig Horner) rises up to battle the evil Darken Rahl (Craig Parker). There’s going to be terrifying consequences if he falls short. His main help is a wizard (Bruce Spence) and a Confessor (Bridget Regan). It’s based on novelist Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth. The series is produced by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert. They’re the guys who brought us Hercules and Xena back in the ’90s. The show has the same vibe and a few of the same New Zealand locations. All 22 episodes are on 5 DVDs. The bonus features includes Goodkind discussing the adaptation. It’s very rare that a novelist isn’t horrified at what Hollywood has done to their series.

Chop Socky Chooks: Volume One enters the kung fu chickens. That’s right, animated martial arts fighting fowl. The Aardman studio creation is vibrant. Chook is Oceanic slang for chicken so don’t get your feathers ruffled. There’s a lot of espionage with the leading agents battling Dr. Wasabi’s evil empire. Who hasn’t realized the dastardly nature of wasabi? They get to use their wicked moves and numerous 007-esque gadgets. The boxset contains the first 13 episodes that aired on the Cartoon Network.

Little Spirit: Christmas in New York brings a dose of animated Danny DeVito for the holiday season. Danny voices a New York City cabbie who narrates the tale. A family moves to Manhattan and quickly lose their pet dog. During the hunt, the son finds a new little pet called Little Spirit. Together they take in the fun of the holidays in the Big Apple. It’s a kiddie cute entertainment. The bonus features include a making of special and an interview with Danny DeVito. Plus a music video from Duncan Sheik. Nice to see he’s still around and not living off his condom empire cash. The special is only 44 minutes so it doesn’t go on too long. Fans of NBC news will be delighted by Brian Williams giving the voiceover performance of his career as Rock Granite.

The Killing Room recreates a government psychological project codenamed MK-ULTRA. This has to be an evil scientific experiment since Peter Stormare (Fargo) is in charge. He’s assisted by Chloe Sevigny (Big Love) as they gather a group of people to fill out a long series of questions. Included in the guinea pigs is Timothy Hutton, Clea DuVall (Carnivale) and Nick Cannon (Mr. Mariah Carey). The test begins with Stomare shooting and the test group locked in the room. It’s like SAT Saw. This is almost a Peter Watkins film. Expect Glenn Beck to claim this film is a documentary. A rather queasy fright film for people who already have a test taking phobia.

The Tournament gives Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting) a chance to go insane with weapons. That’s always a cinematic treat. In this case he’s part of a last man standing tournament involving the top 30 assassins working in the world. Every seven years a group of billionaires host this fatal knock out match. The defending champ is Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction). The wild card is Kelly Hu (Nash Bridges). There’s tons of blood and bullets in this free for all of top flight carnage. Having Carlyle and Rhames face off is a treat that requires a large TV screen to capture their mayhem. I couldn’t help, but think how this bookends with Kelly Hu’s recent hosting of Top Chef Masters. Except in this case it’s Top Murderers Masters.

Adult Swim’s Dana Snyder and Quick Stop Entertainment’s Ken Plume set out to have a literate conversation between two pals, but inevitably devolve into a verbal, and funny, free-for-all full of bickering, infighting, and the special kind of male bonding that comes from conflict expressed through the podcast medium.

Actor/comedian/raconteur Dana Snyder, you’re certainly aware, is Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake, Squidbillies‘ Granny, Minoriteam’s Dr. Wang, and The Venture Bros.‘ Alchemist. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs (bat availability pending), you can keep tabs on him via his website, www.eyeofthesnyder.com.

Ken Plume is the editor-in-chief here at Quick Stop. He is a friend of Dana’s, as well as his arch-nemesis.

VISIT THE SNYDECAST EXPERIENCE

KEN P.D. SNYDECAST #119: You Started It - Ken & Dana return on Halloween with an episode that has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. Not even tangentially. Does that disappoint you? It does have plenty of bickering, though. So there’s that.

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #119 (MP3 format) – 87.54 MB

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Got something to say? E-mail Dana & Ken at the Snydecast mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SNYDECAST ARCHIVES

##

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp

ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME LIVE DVD - REVIEW

One of the things that hits you about the midway point when watching this set is that this has to be one of the greatest live “Best Of” compilations ever put to DVD. The luminaries of rock and roll that appear within this presentation is enough to make it a worthwhile purchase for yourself but certainly is something that ought to be considered a solid gift for anyone who appreciates a wide spectrum of music.

The interesting thing that’s also included is a nice sampling of acceptance speeches. I realize this may not be a real selling point to some but, to me, it’s interesting to hear where many of these artists drew their own inspiration as they went down their path of greatness. It wasn’t always great for these musicians so it’s a delight to get some moments that don’t involve a musical instrument. These people are worth more than their instruments and it allows us a little glimpse into their humanity. And the inductions ought not to be missed, either. To hear Axl Rose inducting Elton John is a moment of oddness that certainly works and there is a moment when Bono inducts the late Bob Marley that should put to rest any criticisms about the man’s sense of his on ego.

And the performances, what people are really here to see, however, are a mixed bunch. I think, and this completely understandable, that those performing are not performing entire shows. These are not concerts but Grammy-style showcases of their hits, so to speak. That said, you have the usual things like audio levels being sometimes wonky, the age of those on the stage sometimes indicate why some don’t go on the road as much anymore, but it all can be attributed to the way concerts go. It sometimes can take a couple songs for artists to get their rhythm and this is no exception. You get one shot here to make the case why you deserve to be there in the first place and sometimes it doesn’t work out that well. However, there are some standout performances by Eddie Vedder and The Doors, Metallica comes correct for their selection, and I was just enamored with James Brown. The latter of which never knew the meaning of the word offstage.

This set really defines the state of popular music in the late 20th century. While the content extends into the 2000’s what you have here is a compendium of acts that all have contributed to the successes of those who have come after them. You may not think that an act that was going strong in the 1970’s has anything to do with the meteoric rise of any rock band coming through the ranks nowadays but it is the organic osmosis of rock and roll that you can see on these discs that show how many connecting threads there are in this industry. No where else is the appropriation and the inspiration of the things we admire from our own rock stars more on display than right here.  This is a vivid document of those people who we’ve paid hundreds of dollars to see live, we’ve bought their records, their shirts, and nowhere else will you find a more appropriate gift for the music lover in your life.

A product description:

On October 20, 2009, Time Life commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame with an unprecedented, comprehensive collection of performances compiled from a quarter century of induction celebrations. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live DVD collection boasts 125 remarkable performances by the most influential and significant figures in rock music history, as well as the speeches, toasts and roasts by which these members of rock royalty salute each others’ accomplishments. History is made when legendary artists such as Mick Jagger and Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen and Bono, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Tom Petty, take the stage for once-in-a-lifetime collaborations. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live DVD set includes nine DVDs, eight of these featuring an assortment of performances spanning more than two decades of ceremonies, as well as induction and acceptance speeches, and never-before-seen backstage and rehearsal footage. A ninth DVD features The Concert For The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, a star-studded concert event which opened the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum inCleveland in 1995. Never before available, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live DVD set is an unparalleled rock ‘n’ roll experience - over 24 hours of rare and exclusive performances and footage – and a must-own for every music fan.

On October 20, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live 9-DVD set will be available for purchase exclusively online for $119.96 via the DVD web site RockHallDVDs.com or TimeLife.com.

Each year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame honors rock music’s pioneering figures during prestigious, black-tie ceremonies. Rock’s biggest stars induct their biggest influences and contemporaries, with heartfelt, wise and witty speeches. Over the years, Paul McCartney has inducted John Lennon, Paul Simon has inducted Stevie Wonder, Steven Tyler has inducted AC/DC, Elton John has inducted The Beach Boys, and in turn, Elton John was inducted by Axl Rose. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live DVD includes a staggering 52 of these tributes, all complete and unedited. But, it’s during the live performance part of the ceremony when rock history is really made.

With egos set aside, the artists take the stage and deliver once-in-a-lifetime performances, often with a truly mind-blowing combination of talent, such as Mick Jagger performing with Bruce Springsteen, REM with Eddie Vedder, The Band with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck with Jimmy Page. As Robbie Robertson once commented, “It’s an opportunity to see musical combinations we may never see again as long as we live,” Case in point, 1988’s ceremony featured a jaw-dropping performance of The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” with George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty, Mick Jagger and Billy Joel. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live DVD set includes 125 of these musically historic performances, from Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry rockin’ “Roll Over Beethoven” at the inaugural ceremony in 1986, to Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ron Wood, Joe Perry, Flea, and Metallica’s rendition of “The Train Kept A-Rollin’” at this year’s ceremony in April. As a bonus, a ninth DVD contains the 1995 Concert For The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame featuring an all-star line-up including John Mellencamp, Bon Jovi, Lou Reed, Soul Asylum, The Allman Brothers, Sheryl Crow, The Kinks, Ann and Nancy Wilson, John Fogerty, James Brown and Al Green.

Online Exclusive Collection includes:

* 9 DVDs in deluxe collector’s packaging
* 125 one-of-a-kind live performances
* 54 complete Hall of Fame induction speeches
* “The Concert for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” commemorating the opening of the museum in Cleveland in 1995 featuring performances by John Mellencamp, Eric Burdon and Bon Jovi, Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed and Soul Asylum, The Allman Brothers and Sheryl Crow, The Kinks, Ann and Nancy Wilson, John Fogerty, James Brown, and Al Green.
* 9-plus hours of never-before-seen backstage and rehearsal footage.
* 9 essays from award winning music journalists and historians Rob Bowman, Holly George-Warren, Michael Hill, Dave Marsh, Charlie McCardell and Andy Schwartz

PERFORMANCES BY:

AC/DC, Aerosmith, The Allman Brothers, The Band, Jeff Beck, Bee Gees, Chuck Berry, Blondie, Bon Jovi, Ruth Brown, Jackson Browne, Lindsey Buckingham, Eric Burdon, Jerry Butler, Solomon Burke, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, Chubby Checker, Eric Clapton, Elvis Costello, Cream, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Sheryl Crow, Bo Diddley, The Doors, Melissa Etheridge, Flea, Fleetwood Mac, John Fogerty, The Four Tops, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Green Day, Dave Grohl, Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Dhani Harrison, Taylor Hawkins, Isaac Hayes, Don Henley, John Lee Hooker, Bruce Hornsby, The Isley Brothers, Etta James, Mick Jagger, Jefferson Airplane, Billy Joel, Kid Rock, B.B. King, Ben E. King, The Kinks, Jonny Lang, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Jeff Lynne, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Mamas & The Papas, Martha & the Vandellas, Dave Mason, Paul McCartney, Metallica, Stevie Nicks, The O’Jays, Roy Orbison, Jimmy Page, Parliament-Funkadelic, Joe Perry, Tom Petty, Wilson Pickett, The Pretenders, Prince, Queen, Bonnie Raitt, The Rascals, R.E.M., Lou Reed, The Righteous Brothers, Robbie Robertson, The Ronettes, Axl Rose, Santana, Percy Sledge, Soul Asylum, Bruce Springsteen, The Staple Singers, Patti Smith, Booker T. & the MG’s, James Taylor, Traffic, Tina Turner, U2, The Who, Ann & Nancy Wilson, Steve Winwood, Ron Wood, ZZ Top

MONTY PYTHON: THE OTHER BRITISH INVASION DVD - REVIEW

My introduction to sketch comedy came with the discovery of The Kids in the Hall.

I was ravenous for every new season that came out. I bought dozens of VHS tapes in order to possess every episode as they aired. I traded with other people in order to get the original HBO airings, to watch the pilot episode, to get my hands on the Brain Candy workprint after the film came out. I learned how to use Internet newsgroups in 1994 in order to connect with other likeminded yahoos. I was borderline freaky when it came to pouring over all the minutiae with this show.

Then I discovered Monty Python.

A precursor to all those who came after them I was primed, so to speak, to understand what made Python so sharp at their game. They understood that you could be bizarre, that you could take things too far and, most certainly, that you could inject a little bit of cerebral humor into the mix. Thankfully, this documentary bookends the comedic series nicely as A&E Video put together a 2 DVD set that explores the performers behind the sketches.

To me, this is a rewarding experience in that finding out what everyone brought with them to the troupe before they were Monty Python is fascinating. Using interviews from those still around, Graham Chapman is still included for those wondering, the documentary gets these guys reflecting on their jobs prior to connecting as a whole. What’s interesting is the use of existing footage of the various television incarnations these members did before Python in that you can see the elements that just seemed to be mixed properly after they decided to join into a cohesive group, like a human Voltron that couldn’t exist on any one part. These men were destined to be together and the documentary gives you that look behind what went in making this all happen.

The other disc that’s included here explores life after the series has started to take a foothold in England and it’s just as fascinating as the first. Maybe I’m easily amused by shiny spoons but charting the moments that helped Monty Python breakthrough to American audiences is an exercise in happenstance, good timing, and for anyone who has been a casual fan who doesn’t already know the history it is a nice way to see how a show became a phenomenon. Monty Python still lives on in the cultural comedic landscape for those who appreciate what they did and after seeing these two documentaries it’s not hard to see how it all happened.

A product description:

CELEBRATE THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORLD’S FUNNIEST COMEDY TROUPE WITH A 2-DVD SET FEATURING TWO NEVER-AIRED DOCUMENTARIES

As hard as it is to imagine, there was a world before Monty Python. And just like any other great historical epoch — the Jurassic Period, the Age of Chivalry, The Dawn of Disco — scholars have invested hundreds of hours examining the Rise of Python: that brief shining moment before the world knew how brilliant buffoonery could be. Watch, laugh and learn in THE RISE OF MONTY PYTHON: THE OTHER BRITISH INVASION

“Before the Flying Circus” features rare vintage footage and interviews trace the pre-Monty Python influences that honed the wit of the future Pythons and shaped their destinies as the world’s most innovative comedy partnership. “Monty Python Conquers America” is the story of the OTHER British invasion - the funny one. Monty Python’s astonishing American success was due as much to the passion of well-placed fans as it was to a string of absurdly lucky breaks. Being really, REALLY funny helped some, too. Featuring interviews with the Pythons, Hank Azaria, Jimmy Fallon, David Hyde Pierce, and others.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN - GIVEAWAY

I love being able to give these kinds of things out.

I had a casual interest in this series when it was out but I do understand the ravenous nature with which people express their high praise for this program. It seems well written, the effects look pretty nice, and I couldn’t care less that the program has ended.

Well, my loss is your gain because I have five copies of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN to give away. In order for you to win a copy all I need you to do is  shoot me an e-mail at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and tell me the name of those robot things with the red eye that bobs back and forth like Kit from Knight Rider.

It’s just that easy.

Product Description:

Edward James Olmos directs this feature-length drama that retells the story of the Peabody-winning series–from the perspective of the Cylons. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN finds man’s creations plotting to destroy their makers, but their genocidal scheme leaves survivors. Now, two Cylons must try to eliminate the remnants of humanity, while Adama (Olmos) and his fleet struggle to survive. From the nuclear devastation that began the miniseries to Sharon’s (Grace Park) attempt to kill her commander, all the show’s biggest moments are seen from the enemy’s point of view. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN also stars Tricia Helfer, Michael Hogan, Dean Stockwell, Michael Trucco, and Aaron Douglas.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN - BONUS FEATURES
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan on Blu-ray Hi-Def and DVD takes viewers deeper into the acclaimed space drama with exclusive bonus features, including:

* EXCLUSIVE TO Blu-ray Hi-Def:
o BD-LIVE: Access the BD-Live Center through your Internet-connected player to download more exclusive content, the latest trailers and more!
+ MY SCENES: Bookmark your favorite scenes from the movie.
+ BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TRIVIA: All-new trivia game.

* BONUS FEATURES (BLU-RAY HI-DEF and DVD):
o DELETED SCENES
o FROM ADMIRAL TO DIRECTOR: EDWARD JAMES OLMOS AND THE PLAN - A day-in-the-life with director and actor Edward James Olmos, as he tackles the most ambitious Battlestar Galactica production to date.
o THE CYLONS OF THE PLAN - Features interviews with the actors who play the film’s key Cylons, including Dean Stockwell, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Trucco, Rick Worthy and Michael Bennett.
o THE CYLON ATTACK - This featurette takes viewers behind the scenes for the planning and execution of one of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan’s major action sequences.
o BEHIND THE PLAN - An in-depth look at some stunning visual effects and the role post-production plays in bringing the world of Battlestar Galactica to life.
o FILMMAKER COMMENTARY

This Is It - Review

I was surprised by how much I liked this film.

Putting aside any thoughts or opinions about the man behind the moves, there is a concert film here that actually succeeds on its ability to show how a major production gets from conception to opening night in a way that’s interesting as a document for what was never to be. There is a misnomer that this is a partial documentary as the movie has been completely sanitized of any real peeks into the life of music’s greatest recluses and, further, any mention or hint of Michael Jackson’s demise is nowhere to be seen. The mere fact alone that there was a conscious choice on the movie’s director, Kenny Ortega, more on him in a little bit, to not make this some kind of part of the film’s narrative not only makes the film’s supposition that this is a portrait of an entertainer who deserves one last performance without delving into the after effects of his death false but it’s a an appalling cheat.

One of the delights, however, in watching this film is not just watching Jackson, who simply displays an effortless capacity to orchestrate a multimillion dollar concert venture and his musical acumen could not be better documented in its raw form, but in those who surround him in this film. The dancers, vocalists, musicians, all of those who are ever so briefly interviewed not only feel that being selected by Jackson to be a part of the show to be a magnanimous moment in their artistic lives but their capacity to exude a fresh interpretation of Jackson’s old catalog is the real wonderment here. The choreography is a sheer delight to witness as the marriage between high energy dancing and 21st century technology that was going to be used in order to truly make this a spectacle is worthy enough of a viewing on a big screen in order to try and see the scope of what was planned. One of the things I did mention, that this is really a greatest hits of Michael’s catalog, is something that gave me pause. While I found the musical cues here to evoke a time when Michael Jackson was synonymous with pure pop greatness, long before his image was torn down by a series of scandals, lawsuits, rumors, and bizarre behavior, and it truly transports a causal fan back to when these songs meant something more.

One moment in particular stands out as a truly synergistic distillation of artistic vision and reinterpretation. It’s for the song Thriller and we see how the show’s creative brain trust filmed new footage on a sound stage in front of a green screen, in 3-D no less, while the logistical execution of how you would get an arena full of concertgoers to don the glasses required to make huge spiders and svelte dancing zombies come to life on a huge video screen is never explained, and the mix of archival footage of Michael working out the moves and actions of himself and the dancers. It’s the production element that’s the second real wow factor for this movie. The costuming, the precise reproduction of Michael’s signature hits, the ever so slight ways in which Michael needs to change something, and the sycophantic efforts of Kenny Ortega pepper this movie with a realism that no doubt would be gone from any portrait made about this concert should it have it to opening night. And, to the point of Kenny Ortega, the movie has the unintended consequence of making the director of this film appear to be the exact reason why Michael ultimately meets the demise he does. The “Whatever you want, Michael” lines that are uttered by Ortega shed about the only light we’ll get as to why Michael’s insistence about having his own physician, paid through the show’s overall budget, was allowed to happen.

The collaborative process is certainly more gentile here if you were to compare this to other more vehement and exacting performers like Madonna in Truth or Dare but Michael does get what Michael wants but we’re not quite sure what all that meant in this regard. The ways in which elements of the show’s production are showcased in a manner that display people’s fear, intimidation, whatever it is that keeps people from being themselves, in moments when they’re looking for approval of the former King of Pop. A video clip, a choreographed move, a musical cue, in so many ways this is a film about how one man can wield so much influence over the lives of so many. He did get what he wanted but there are those who were complicit in the way the film ultimately ends.

And that’s the real disappointment in a movie that tries very much to be as sterile about the world around Michael Jackson. Everyone is so busy creating a false world around him, keeping Michael in a perpetual bubble where denials do not exist, that this movie leaves you with the same experience as a fantastic concert that is aimed to those who want a greatest hits adventure: it’s what the audience wants, it’s what they were going to get, but there isn’t a shred of resonance to be felt long after the final curtain call. This is a self-contained experience that ought to be seen if for no other reason than to see what this could have done for the battle scarred musician who will no longer have people letting him get whatever he wants. This is really it.

BLACK DYNAMITE: MICHAEL JAI WHITE/SCOTT SANDERS- Interview

The idea was so outrageous that it just had to work.

When writer/director Scott Sanders and writer/actor Michael Jai White came together to make a movie that took the blaxploitation genre and twisted it just slightly. Slightly enough that the irony just drips off the intentionally washed out screen that gathers the best and beloved elements of the genre in order to send it up. The reason it works is that it is done out of a place of love and admiration. Sanders and White didn’t get on board to do this film in order to defile the movies that spawned such hits as Shaft and Super Fly.

The things that helped bring movies out of sound stages, the technoligical advancements that assisted movie makers to take the cameras to the street, liberated a whole generation of artists who saw that they could make films in the neighborhoods and areas which no doubt were overlooked within the Hollywood system.

Black Dynamite is a movie that does have something to say and is much more than its clever premise of a man who is out to clean up the streets of his neighborhood. Both Sanders and White took some time out  of their schedules to talk about the movie and why it deserves some theatrical love.

BLACK DYNAMITE is now playing…

CHRISTOPHER STIPP:  I’ve heard tons about this movie.  I’ve seen trailers.  I’ve seen clips.  Outrageous.  And I realize that there is more to this movie than the outrageousness.  Can you talk a little about why your chose the period in which the movie is set, how it hearkens back to the 70’s era black film and why you said, “Let’s turn this on its head and make it funny?”

SCOTT SANDERS: I think it initially started with Mike being a big fan of the movies and he did a photo shoot of himself as the character and he just had the idea in his head and I had approached him about another movie and he showed me these pictures as the character and it all just seemed so obvious because Mike is – that’s the picture!  That is from the original photo shoot.  This is what he originally showed me.  And already it was a movie.  It looked like a movie right there.

MICHAEL JAI WHITE: That picture has survived the whole process.  I rented that costume from a costume house and incidentally that very same costume in the film.

SANDERS: And now it’s a tattoo at Comi-Con.

(Laughs)

SANDERS: And yes, it just seemed like the obvious thing to do.  The best idea is where you see all the elements come together to make something that would be really fun.  It’s something that has never been done before.  Like, nobody said we’re going to make a blaxploitation movie set in the 70’s, years and years afterwards, knowing how the world has changed in 2009.

WHITE: And it’s really fun when people discover, contemporary actors, in these roles and it’s great to see in almost every scene we introduce somebody.  People are looking forward to it and there are some actors that had folks really happy to see them in the film.

CS:  Can you talk about the casting process?  You guys came up with the idea to do the script and you obviously wanted to avoid this being a one note joke. How did you get other people excited about the project as you were in order to get this to be the best story it could be?

SANDERS: A lot of them were friends of Mike’s and I think once you set the context, the people will come.  Once the days are set and they know it’s going to happen and they get to like - we had a big scene that was a pimp council.  Mike would say, “Hey, we’re doing a 1970’s film, doing a pimp council, want to come?”  It was like, “Yeah, sure.”

WHITE:  Some of the people are kicking themselves right now because they couldn’t make it.  Macy Gray was trapped, stuck, in the airport.  There were a number of people planning on making it – Wesley Snipes was going to play one of the characters as well.  He was a big fan of the movie.  He kicks himself for not being in that council.  We have cameos from people like you wouldn’t expect.

CS:  Can you talk a little about the whole production of it?  When I see it in the trailer, the clips, the music, the fog, the wa-wa-wa of the guitar, how hard was it to put all the elements together in order to do it the right way?

SANDERS: We were just talking about this.  It’s the clarity of assignment and hiring people who know what their assignment is.  Not only know their assignment but revel in that assignment.  The person who did the music for instance, Adrian Younge, who was with us from the beginning when we made our first trailer just to raise the money, is a friend of mine who also edited the movie and that’s what he was doing before Black Dynamite came around.  He was just sitting around in his garage making crazy, funk music with sitars and stuff.  It’s almost like his whole life was just waiting for Black Dynamite to come along.

(Laughs)

WHITE: Exactly.  Byron Minns, who happens to be one of my close friends who also was one of the writers on the movie, he had the most extensive knowledge of blaxploitation films than anyone I’ve ever met.  He could just off the top of his head just quote, just monologue, of these movies and I had to catch up with his knowledge and really cram to learn.  He remembers them all.  He’s an encyclopedia of those movies.  He’s a writer and he’s the co-lead.  He plays Bullhorn.  So it’s like there was just this real special connection with all of us.

CS:  Growing up, did you have a special affinity for these movies? These actors?

WHITE: Absolutely, I feel like it was such a special time.  The 70’s was like the birth of the first black action hero, which was Jim Brown.  Jim Brown, who incidentally is like a surrogate father to me, when I first saw him in these movies I wanted to grow up and be like that guy and there is just something that resonates with him, the mental and physical strength in this guy it’s just, it’s a pervasive thing all over the world that you want to have representation of an alpha male.

It’s what exists in most movies and you want to live vicariously through that dominate character and he was very much someone I idolized and it was a voice to black people at that time that didn’t exist before.  It was in the middle of the black power movement, black is beautiful, and peace and love, and all of that combined, it was an amazing time and so to introduce that to a younger audience I feel, especially in a time like this where I think socially has taken a back step, gangster culture and all that, it’s not so much let’s stick together and be brothers and hold tight and together, oppression, it’s a different voice now.  I wanted to do that for another age group – another generation.

CS:  When you were going to make this film, did you have anything stand in your way to make this happen in terms of financing of people either saying we’ve done that before?  How did you get other people who were in the positions of power to help make it happen?

SANDERS: We were very fortunate.  We made a trailer and gave it to our friend and producer, Jon Steingart, who was a producer on our first film and based on that trailer he said, “OK, we can do this.”  So we didn’t really have to write a script.

(Laughs)

And that’s how it got made.  We were very fortunate that a producer who could see what we were trying to do..

WHITE: And truthfully, this hadn’t been done before.  I’m Gonna Git You Sucka was not set in the 70’s.  It was a contemporary thing – kind of a hybrid.  So this was something that absolutely we went back and did lovingly accurate portrayal of a 70’s movie.

CS:  Right, with the quick close-ups.

WHITE: Yeah, captured the style, the look, the feel and the spirit of that.

CS:  Was it hard to do it?  This was obviously not a big budget but to make a period piece, was it difficult to make sure your cars on the street were Lincolns and what have you?

SANDERS: Yes, we did it with the spirit of those movies.  We used a lot of stock footage and made sure the camera wasn’t pointed in the wrong direction.

(Laughs)

But it happened.  Those are the kinds of errors we had to take right out.  There is a scene where we had to be ultra careful, where Black Dynamite walks into a pool hall and a couple of SUV’s run by and said, well, we can’t use that take.  You know.  Or we didn’t blow out the windows enough but we wanted to see outdoors.  I think just knowing that’s in your head we had to piece it all together.

WHITE: We were really critical on that. We both felt like you cannot let the contemporary world slip through in any way in this movie.  And that’s also with the acting.  Sometimes some of the actors who are actually comedians may 10-1 go for the joke in fact to really do it right, these people were not kidding, they were dead serious.  They came from a spirit of revolution and they were changing the world at that time.  It’s quite funny when you look at it now.

SANDERS: But that’s the joke.  That’s the whole thing.  So the joke is when you play it straight.  It’s not when you go wacka-wacka here’s the joke.

CS:  Right.  I’m thinking about the scene with Cedric Yarbrough, from Reno 911, and you’re right. I was looking for a punch line and it didn’t come.  Very straight.  Did you know that going into it this was how these characters were going be?

WHITE: Definitely.  The other movies that we sometimes get connected with, it’s not that at all.  They are clearly making a joke.  It’s made as a joke.  There is clear physical and deliberate jokes.

SANDERS: There is a scene, and I’m really proud of this scene, in the movie, we drift so far away from jokes, when you see the scene, the whole scene is a joke but we don’t play it as a joke at all.  The scene where Black Dynamite goes into the hospital and Gloria, his love interest is there and they are talking about this 7 year old with heroin.  Now I think that’s funny because 7 year-olds don’t really have that much of a problem being on heroin.  It’s just not a real problem.  But they are talking about it super serious.  Sally was the queen of playing stuff straight, like tears in her eyes and Mike said, “wait a second, I’ve got to do this” because we had a whole way of doing it before and he even softened his voice, said she made him look like an asshole and they are playing this so ridiculous that you forget what the scene is about.

(Laughs)

WHITE: There is a flashback, we have really bad exploitation dialogue, of where my mom is on her death bed and she says, “Black Dynamite I really want you to look after your brother and make sure he doesn’t end up on drugs or dead.”  I mean how absurd is it to call your child Black Dynamite?  It was treated like his name was Harvey.

SANDERS: And an honest tear comes out of her eyes.

(Laughs)

WHITE: She’s playing it so straight like her child is named Black Dynamite.  Even writing that, because at first the name was Super Bad, but that name got taken and Scott came up with the name Black Dynamite and the one thing that made me go, “You know what, that is a good name because I thought of that scene and how ridiculous it would be for a mother to call her child Black Dynamite?”  You gotta go, “Where in the hell does that come from?”

(Laughs)

So when it comes to seeing the scene, it’s always pretty funny because it’s ridiculous and she does it so serious that it goes over people’s heads.

CS:  Do people miss it?

WHITE: Yeah, they will miss how ridiculous some of these things are.  There is one militant who is doing such a bad acting job that he reads the stage direction and it goes over people’s heads.

He turns startled and says, “The militant turns startled, where did you come from?”  And then my character is thinking that the director is going to yell cut.  This is a movie within a movie.  And later on I say I want to speak to the man in charge and he says sarcastically, “I am the man in charge.”

(Laughs)

WHITE: So, it slips by and it’s so appreciated when people get it because it’s just delivered in such a way, they take it serious.  So when people back up more and look at it another time there will be more times for them to enjoy it and catch on.

CS:  Interesting note: I was reminded of today that a movie is made three times.  Once on the page, once when you shoot it and once when you edit it.  How is that evolution from page, to shooting to editing, and were there any surprises for you as this film evolved?

SANDERS: I think it evolves all three times.

WHITE: Exactly.

SANDERS: You set out when you write it down how you think it should go and then we made serious adjustments when we were shooting and then in the editing, we cut out 10 minutes out of the movie, a straight 10 minutes.

CS:  Really?

SANDERS: Yeah and then we had to tie that together and that really helped and it’s good because we all got together and looked at this movie and said, “We need to do this, need to do that.”  We’d think about it and at the end of the day we always did the right thing.

WHITE: Absolutely.

SANDERS: And that’s the great process about making the movie.  It’s a constant stream of battles.  You just can’t know everything going into a movie but you have to try and land there as much as you can.

WHITE: I think it exceeded what my plans were.  Some things were such an education.  I love learning and some of the things that we set out, if we were just betting people, the stuff that we would have thought would be the funniest and have the biggest response we would be wrong.  There’s a few moments that I figured would be laughs but the biggest laugh I never knew would come there.

SANDERS:  But a lot of it is whatever it was that made you deliver the line that way.

WHITE: It’s organic.

SANDERS: It’s just organic to whatever the moment is.

WHITE: Yes, like I don’t know, depending on what the situation is, I take in the surroundings of wherever I am.  That becomes part of the scene; therefore, it changes everything I’m doing.

CS:  What kind of surprises?  I’m almost thinking when writing of this film there might have been a few moments like thinking if this is too over the top, is this too overt, need to pull it back a little.  What things were you changing on the fly?

SANDERS: I think the main thing we worked on was making it fast and furious and doing our thing and making sure the length, the feel and the tone, making sure the people were into it the whole period of the movie.  That was the biggest challenge because we had tons of material that we could pull from here and there.  Especially in the context of blaxploitation movie – especially with the connotation with our rip on it – like the whole point of is the plot is weird and awkward – part of the movie is watching the process of filmmaking and watching how it works because that’s what it is.  You are seeing all the scenes and everything on the film.

Just the one thing that we did opposite of what they did in blaxploitation was really pay attention to the pace given the audience of today.  Because in regular blaxploitation movies, the movies in the 70’s in general, people walked to their cars, they get in, they turn the handle, they go to the bathroom, they turn the door, there’s lots of dead time.

WHITE: One thing that I think, in this moment, I realized, and I don’t think I’ve ever voiced this before, I think I realized one thing about this movie and we learned this as we’ve been watching, one thing that makes it different in our brand of humor, is this is a movie that the humor is in listening.  We got the visceral stuff.  We got the actual sight gags and stuff like that.  I’ve always been influenced by Monty Python.  Where there humor was something you hear in nuances.  An audience that listens really gets the nuances.  Sometimes I think the difference is that it’s presented in such a way where people think it’s just the whole sight thing.  We have that and we’re dealing on different levels but the primary level about this movie is the nuances.  And that’s something that’s delivered in the dialogue and in little nuances in the performances.  That’s by and far the things we are heralded about more than anything else.

There are movies that I’m sure you don’t have to think.  Some people go in with the dumb down button and they are going to miss a lot if they think it’s a dumb down movie.  It’s absolutely not.  And that’s a surprise that a lot of people have.

CS:  That’s a bold choice to do it that way.  Because like you said, today’s audiences like to be whacked over the head with their comedy – like I said, overt, it needs to be obvious, all these things.

WHITE: You have these movies like Napoleon Dynamite.  You go in there and you are listening.  You have Borat and go in there listening even though there is this visceral stuff as well.  But sometimes when you say blaxploitation people might thing that you don’t have to listen.  I think sometimes people are surprised that it’s something that has a contribution to the dialogue in it and it’s one of those things that people have pools with the one lines and people try to figure out what is going to be the most quoted one liner.

CS:  Really?

WHITE: Oh by far, we get quotes all the time.  It’s amazingly quoted for such a new movie.

CS:  Speak about that.  What’s the process been like, what’s the experience been like for you to have made this film on something that was pretty goofy/funny but now it’s starting to connect with a lot of people?

WHITE: It’s great for me.  People responding to something I’m writing is far more rewarding than even my acting.  Sometimes we’re playing roles that are not very difficult for me to play.  Let’s face it.  Sometimes I’m playing a bad ass tough guy, contemporarily or whatever, it’s not too hard.  I enjoy being a bad man but come on.  I can do that with 103 degree fever.  It’s really not too difficult.  But to play comedy.  To write it and have an idea and have it come out of my head and I get the response that I want, has nothing to do with being physically gifted.  I can’t control that.  I can control very little of what I actually look like.  It’s a DNA thing.  As far as what’s going on inside, that’s different.  It means a lot more to me.

SANDERS: To have people – going all over the world – and to have people like the movie – we just got back from the Czech Republic and had 1300 people at our premiere.

CS:  Chech Republic?

SANDERS: Yeah.

WHITE: Yea, all the seats were filled and then they let in 100 people and there were still people outside waiting to get in.  They sat in the aisles.  And ended up with a standing ovation.

In conjunction with Overture, we’re giving away a MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS prize pack which includes a copy of The Men Who Stare at Goats book and the official “No Goats, No Glory” T-Shirt.

The Men Who Stare At Goats opens November 6th, 2009.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, November, 11th.

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on November, 11th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

SModcast is the meandering palaver of a pair of dudes whose voices are so dull, they don’t deserve to be on the radio (and, hence, aren’t). Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are SModcast.The best thing about SModcast? It don’t cost nothing.

SModcast 96: Take Off That Little Hat and Be Killed! -

In which our heroes turn to the audience for guidance.

[CONTENT WARNING] SModcast features harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Listener discretion is advised.

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Interview: Eric Lichtenfeld Part 1 of 2: Blood and Light

This week, the western world sees the release of Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen on DVD, a film very telling of the industry in which it swims. However, for those of us with more then two decades of life under our belts, this is a trumpet, an alarm, a loud drunk at the party of the “action” film genre, it’s a guest that reminds you how much has changed and how your style is no longer “in.” We can rest assured that the drunk is right. Action isn’t what it once was. The hardware has been replaced with software, and the hero has been replaced with the “hottie.” Spectacle is no longer flavored with primal instinct, blood, and brute force. Instead, it’s injected with pusillanimous, pixel-engulfed, stimuli. There’s no need to be bitter. Those that care about the past, present, and future of this beloved genre are still able to celebrate “action’s” timeline with the reverence it deserves through literature such as Eric Lichtenfeld’s Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie. I had the pleasure of talking with author Eric Lichtenfeld about his book, the genre, and reactions to his chosen subject matter.

BOB ROSE: Thank you very much for reading my review.

ERIC LICHTENFELD: Oh, it was my pleasure.

BR: I can’t tell you how excited I was to learn that the author read it.

[Laughs]

BR: You thought I had some valid criticisms about the last third of the book?

EL: I’m not entirely sure I agree completely with it, but I think it’s fair. If I can sort of distance myself from it and approach the bigger issue you’re talking about. Certainly the action movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s are the ones of my formative years, so I think there is more of a sentimental attachment to those movies then to the ones in the ‘90s, regardless of the merit of one era versus the other.

BR: Is it a matter of personal perspective?

EL: I think so. We have a tendency to write most passionately, most engagingly about the things that influenced us the most directly. Maybe I should have done more to control all of that, but I think there is probably something to that observation. This might be something else you are probably picking up on. I think the ‘80s is sort of the classical era of the genre. Whatever genre you’re talking about is going to have a “classical” period where its definition is most crystallized; is at its clearest. So from the perspective of writing about a genre you’re interested in, there is so much to unpack in that period.

BR: So the ‘80s is where the Beethoven of action films exists.

EL: [laughs] I’m glad you sort of pushed me on that a little bit. Classical doesn’t necessarily mean the best movies are in that period.

BR: Just the most definitive ones?

EL: Exactly. The genre has its strongest sense of self in that period. The way I look at genres, and not just action, is that you have an early phase where there is a lot of experimentation going on. This is particularly true of the action movie. We’re combining elements of other genres and arriving at some kind of a new formula. A lot of that you’ll look back on in the future and see as sort of a primordial ooze. Then your next phase is when the formula is figured out, when filmmakers really know how to capitalize on that formula and keep reproducing it.

BR: Like how they kept trying to remake Die Hard?

EL: Similarly. By the time you get into all those Die-Hard-On-A-Something’s you’re already into the next phase of the action movie. I would say the classical phase of the action movie is more like the Stallone films, Cobra and Rambo, those really para-militaristic exercises from the ‘80s.

BR: Including Predator, Commando…

EL: Absolutely, in the sense that Predator is a very macho movie, really focused on the muscles and the hardware. With Predator you also see the influences of science-fiction and horror on the genre, the way you’ll continue to see throughout the ‘90s. I really admire Predator.

BR: I’m a huge fan as well.

EL: I like to think of it as more then your typical ‘80s action movie.

BR: It kind of belongs to a “Men Only” club…

EL: Which is vaguely true of a lot of John McTiernan movies in particular. Another great example would be the Chuck Norris films from the ‘80s, such as The Delta Force, a classical example of the classical phase, where the genre is most “itself.”

BR: I think your book points in that direction.

EL: Yeah, and actually the point I made in the conclusion, in this edition, was about Team America. I think Team America is a great test case for this. There are two components to it. There’s the political satire and then there’s the pure action movie parody.

BR: It’s a parody of Bruckheimer and Bay films.

EL: Before that, really I think it’s a parody of Chuck Norris movies. It’s a parody of Delta Force, of Navy Seals, which is not Chuck Norris but which was made in that vein.

BR: Red Dawn maybe?

EL: A little bit, sure. That was the mode that really influenced Bruckheimer and later Bay. You have a very ‘80s satire in Team America. Now, if you think about how old Team America’s target audience was in the 1980s, there is really no reason that parody should work, except that we have this ingrained idea in us that when we are talking about the “action movie,” that is what we are talking about.

BR: While I’m a fan of it, you can argue that Team America wasn’t financially successful with the target audience at the box office…

EL: Sure, well it’s a very offensive action movie with puppets; it had a stacked deck working against it. [laughs] I think what Team America is proving is that when we think of the “action movie,” what springs to mind is the archetype from the 1980s, and everything else, everything that came later, is a response to that. In the ‘90s and beyond, they became half-serious action movie, half-satire or parody. You see it in horror a lot, with Scream and films like that. You see something similar to that in the action genre. As far as all the Die-Hard-On-A-Something’s go, in the ‘90s you were already into that.

BR: The classical period was already over.

EL: Right, and the films were responding to the classical phase.

BR: Mainstream American movies, with a studio-sized budget all seemed to be much more clearly defined back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Now it seems we have two genres in mainstream film, with action or without action. Either there is a huge budgeted action behemoth or a tiny small budgeted independent film. There’s no in between. Predator, Die Hard, Rambo 2 are clearly defined action films. Today with films like Spiderman, Wolverine, Transformers they seem watered down, trying to span too many genres and are basically just giant “catch-all films.” I realize that is a broad statement, but I think there is validity to it. Would you agree with that?

EL: Yes, as you say, that is a broad statement, but I think there is a lot of truth to it. What’s happening is a kind of polarization. What has happened with the action movie is the budgets have gotten bigger, the standings of the films have grown, and they are more summer/holiday-tentpoles and less anything else.

BR: They are a big stew of everything you could want in a movie.

EL: Yes, and I think the reason we are seeing that is because of CGI, which allows your action movie to take on the more science-fiction, super-heroic, fantastical elements that makes the movie safer for a larger audience. Fewer movies get to suck up more and more oxygen. What has been disappearing for a while is the mid-size R-rated action movie.

BR: Would you consider Die Hard now, in 2009, a mid-size movie?

EL: Yes, I would. Die Hard is a really interesting example because if you were to go back to 1988, the movie was made for $27 million or so.

BR: Which now is a mid-size budget.

EL: Now? Actually it’s almost a small budget. [laughs]

BR: District 9 was made for $30 million, so that “smaller” film is the same price now as Die Hard, a huge film, was then.

EL: Right. One thing they have been saying for a long time is it’s very hard for studios to make $60 million movies. The budgets are very small or very large. In 1988, $27 million, it’s not chump-change, but it’s not a huge amount of money. More significantly, Die Hard was released gradually. It opened in only a couple of cities the first weekend, expanded the second weekend, and then went wide. You would never have that today. Today, by the third weekend, your movie would be close to done at the box office. Die Hard was a smaller production, released in a smaller way, and I think part of that is because Bruce Willis was not a movie star yet. He had a few movies that didn’t do well, and he wasn’t even that popular as a public persona at the time.

BR: He was unknown to the public?

EL: It wasn’t that he was unknown; it had gotten to the point where his popularity was waning. He wasn’t a movie star, he was a TV star, and people liked him on Moonlighting. But he started to acquire a reputation as a party boy, and as Die Hard got closer to release his, “star” was starting to decline. These were things that Fox had to navigate its way around, and obviously they did it extremely successfully.

BR: Sure, Die Hard defined a genre and his career.

EL: Trying to imagine something like Die Hard would be very difficult in today’s climate because you have larger movies and the technology allows them to reach a broader audience. What you can do with “light,” for lack of a better word, now, you had to do with “blood” then. We’re talking about spectacle, which is the driving principle of the action movie. All these stories are structured around spectacle, so doing that with blood certainly narrows your audience to a certain extent.

BR: Now it’s opened up to everyone, we don’t have to have blood.

EL: Right, and also because of changes in distribution and the relationship between studios and the theaters: how many movies are in circulation, and how long they get to play. All of these things, and budgets, are factors in how the genre has morphed to try to appeal to as broad an audience as possible in the shortest time frame you can get away with.

BR: You’re a great writer, you’re an intelligent guy, you have a Master’s. Did you get a lot of confused looks when you set out to write this book?

EL: [Big Laughs] Wow, great question. I started working on the book when I was still working on my Master’s degree and I got a lot of different reactions. It was really interesting. I got people who were unabashedly excited, because it was about time these things got the scholarly or intellectual validation that they wanted them to have. I got a lot of raised eyebrows, particularly in my department. I remember someone seemed to be excited that I had a book contract and asked me about the book. I asked him “Do you like the genre?” and he said “I did when I was thirteen.”

BR: [Laughs]

EL: I got a lot of that. A woman in my department asked me if I was interested in this subject because I was otherwise insecure in my masculinity. [laughs] But probably the most interesting reaction was from older people. Fathers of my friends would ask me, “Are you talking about this movie? Or that movie?” Actually, it wasn’t limited to the older set, but people would ask me these things and you could tell these were movies that were personal favorites of theirs and they were very protective of them. Obviously, what I was going to talk about was going to be determined by how I defined the genre (action is a pretty broad category) and frankly, how much space I had to play with, which was based on what the publisher dictated. People would ask me, in almost a challenging way, like they were trying to challenge me to a fight, about the movies they thought should be in the book. “Why aren’t you talking about this? Why are you talking about that?”

Everyone knows what a western is. Everyone thinks they know what horror is, action has been a little more amorphous. So it was interesting to see how invested people were in “their” titles. Was I going to include them? Was I going to treat them right? Generally speaking the reaction was positive. People liked the fact that the treatment that had been given to westerns, film noir, and to science fiction was now being given to the action film.

BR: They deserve that validity. Eli Roth has argued several times, even on FOX news, that American horror films are usually a by-product of the “horrors” of the current administration. Films like Last House On The Left, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are born out of the fear and frustrations of Vietnam. Films like Saw and Hostel being born out of the Iraq war, even the “lame” horror films of the ‘90s show the lack of those fears. Roth was basically saying that the genre of horror has never rightfully gotten its due in how it accurately reflects society’s fears. I think what you do here, very successfully, is show how the action genre reflects society.

EL: Thank you.

BR: If horror shows us what are fears are at a given period in history, then does Action show us the inverse of that?

EL: I think they probably do the same thing in the sense that horror shows us what our fears are, but also what our ideals are, even if those ideals are a little bit skewed. Horror is fundamentally about the disruption of the normal by the abnormal. So if the abnormal is what we’re afraid of, then the normal is what we idealize. The virginal girl who destroys Freddy or Jason is this cultural ideal. So if horror shows us our fears, but also what we idealize, then action does the same thing. We define ourselves based on who we are, but also based on who we are not. The villains of the action movie signify what it is we fear, and the hero signifies another kind of ideal. I think they, horror and action, use slightly different means to achieve similar ends.

BR: In your book you discuss a lot about how terrorism is shown in action, which is most certainly a fear we had when certain movies were being made. A fear of who we aren’t.

EL: Yeah, and these fears are layered. Go back to the ‘80s, the classical phase, and take something like The Delta Force. Yes, it’s a fear of terrorism, but beneath that it’s a fear of “the other.” Cobra, which is not ostensibly about terrorism, and where the villains are white, is the exact same thing though. It’s not just fear of terrorism, it’s fear of “the other.” Even though the villains are a bunch of caucasians running around.

BR: They’re still not part of the Rockwellian society that is idealized?

EL: Yeah, they are clearly shown to be abnormal, practically on a biological level. I think I wrote about this in the book, how “other” the villains in Cobra are. As far as the connection between the genre and culture and politics goes, I would say it works both ways. The movies reflect the culture, but I also believe that the culture reflects the movies, in the sense that these movies are our modern day mythology. They are based on mythological forms and structures that go back, in America, to a time when there wasn’t even an America, to the 1600s, and of course they have roots and antecedents even before that. So when you look at what’s happening in the culture and in politics, very often, it seems to be conforming, not to a Lethal Weapon per se, but to a lot of the mythology that a Lethal Weapon has inherited and is expressing. Think back to the Natalee Holloway case, the blond high school senior who disappeared in Aruba. Or just generally, think back to whenever there is a white girl in trouble…

BR: Like JonBenet Ramsey?

EL: Yeah. Whenever there is a white girl in distress, often times you will see this kind of counter-coverage about how we only talk about it when white girls are missing. We never talk about it when African-American or other minority children are in danger.

BR: The white girl being the idealized princess in our society.

EL: Right, and that goes back to that captivity narrative that is so embedded in the action film, and in the western before that, and back and back and back.

BR: Like in The Searchers and such.

EL: Exactly, exactly. So yes, I do think movies reflect our culture, I also think the culture reflects, not the movies themselves, but the mythologies on which the movies are founded.

BR: Ronald Reagan mentioned Rambo while addressing the nation, or the Star Wars missile defense program. Movies do have an effect.

EL: Sure.

BR: This is a simple question, a huge question, but I have to ask, what is your favorite film of all time?

EL: Oh, wow. I don’t believe you can ask a film person what their one favorite film is. I know it should be an easy question but I take that question so seriously that I would never ask it of myself or give a straightforward answer. There is such a huge body of great movies to choose from, and there are also so many different ways to parse the question. Is it, what do I think are the greatest, most magnificent, movies ever made? Or is it, what are my personal favorites based on memory, nostalgia, sentiments and all that?

BR: Based on your life experience, your film knowledge, and your own taste.

EL: An intersection, a sweet spot between all these different ways of construing the greatest films ever. This is how I’ll answer the question: the movie that made me fall in love with the movies was Superman.

BR: Would you consider that a film within the action genre?

EL: If it were made today it would be. In 1978 not exactly, but it is certainly in that boy’s-adventure mode for sure. All these genres exist on a family tree. This I think is the more interesting question: “what is the movie I have a crush on right now?” What is the movie that I get really fascinated by, interested in, and think about for a couple of weeks or months? It’s not necessarily the greatest movie or one of my favorite movies, but one I find fascinating at the moment. Not necessarily a current movie; it could be 50 years old. In cinema, like anything in life, we feel our crushes very acutely. I like to think of it like that.

BR: What is your current cinematic crush?

EL: Right now I don’t know if I have one; it kind of comes and goes. [laughs]

BR: As far as crushes go, when I first wrote you I mentioned I had just watched Brannigan, and you seemed to not be too enthusiastic toward the movie. I’ll admit, I didn’t hate it.

[big laughs]

EL: Strange movie, I didn’t hate it. What I think is interesting about movies from that era is that it doesn’t look like the action movies that would come later. Brannigan really illustrates what I was talking about before. Brannigan, in the context of the action genre doesn’t really know what it is, because the genre hasn’t really been defined yet. So Brannigan is sort of borrowing and playing with elements from the past and from the present, but in retrospect it’s still in that very hazy place.

BR: While watching Brannigan I kind of fell into that rut of a mindset that you get, with the intense editing and action of new movies, sometimes you forget that old action films can be just as intense and you’re not prepared for it. When he explodes through that door at the beginning of the movie, kicks it down and barrels in, it threw me back, because I wasn’t expecting it. It felt like something I would see today.

EL: I’m heartened by the fact that craftsmanship from 35 years ago speaks to you that way.

BR: Oh it does, I can watch Predator and it will metaphorically “kick my butt,” more then say if I watched G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

EL: Predator is an exquisitely crafted movie. What I often say about Predator is that I find the movie oddly touching. The reason for that is if you look at the elements that make it up, you have Schwarzenegger who is a star, you have commandos in keeping with the paramilitary vogue of the ‘80s, you have the monster…

BR: Even a man-on-a-mission scenario.

EL: Yeah, it seems like it should just be this kind of studio product, but this is why I find it so touching: it could have been just as successful while getting away with a much lower level of craftsmanship. I don’t think the film’s success ultimately hinged on its being as finely crafted as it was, but it was finely crafted because that’s what these filmmakers do. Does it matter that they aren’t making these intensely personal art-house movies that may or may not have been their aspirations? They are making a very straightforward corporate genre piece, that if made thirty or forty years earlier would have been a B-movie on the second half of a double-bill, and probably forgotten to film history. There are a lot of movies from the ‘80s that are still around with us, really thanks to nostalgia, and not because they represent any real achievement in terms of style, craftsmanship, or storytelling. Predator is extremely simple, the building blocks of it are extremely conventional, but it’s the craftsmanship that puts it over the top. The filmmakers didn’t have to do that, but they did.

BR: If anyone does that the best, McTiernan does.

EL: I think Die Hard is the greatest action movie ever made and I’ve been an admirer of McTiernan for a very long time.

BR: I’ll admit that I think Last Action Hero, directed by McTiernan, is one of the best satires of the “classical period,” as you put it, of the genre. I will get a lot of flack for that.

EL: [laughs] Last Action Hero is a perfect example of what I was talking about before. It’s in that third phase where it’s looking back and commenting on what came before. I think Last Action Hero is a really mixed bag. It doesn’t get enough credit for the good things about it. It’s a very flawed movie. However, there are positive things that get overlooked.

BR: The movie does have a cult following. A lot of fans have revisited the movie and enjoy it for what it was trying to do.

EL: I don’t even think it was entirely successful at what it was trying to do. Hudson Hawk is another movie that people completely wrote off with a terrible reputation and then years later, a small number of people revisited that movie apart from the way it was sold, apart from what the studios said the movie was and found a new affection for it. I don’t think that’s exactly the case with Last Action Hero. The movie does do what it’s trying to do; it just doesn’t do it consistently. So I think a lot of the criticisms of it are fair, I just wish at the same time people would give it credit for what it does nicely.

BR: Do you think that all of [Last Action Hero’s] failures and criticisms are, in a way, part of the satire too? People viewed the movie as an overblown, disastrous waste of time, much like how the average action movie is usually seen by most critics. It fits the stigma, its story is almost part of the satire.

EL: I don’t necessarily agree. It is a satire of this large and overblown genre, but whatever you’re satirizing you have to play by its rules. Last Action Hero is all over the place. It’s going in so many directions at the same time; it doesn’t stick to the rules of that which it is satirizing. I’ll give you an example. The animated cat in the police station. Where is that in “the action movie?”

BR: I agree, all the jokes have to do with the inhabitants of that police department are completely absurd and out of place.

EL: The animated cat doesn’t exist within the genre the movie is ostensibly making fun of. If you were to forget everything you know about Last Action Hero, forget the marketing, the hype, the reputation, just go in cold, you would have a hard time placing exactly what the idea of the movie is. It’s making fun of Hollywood and making fun of the genre all at the same time. What I think is a pity is that they didn’t make the movie they originally intended to make, which was a much darker satire simply of the genre. The original title of the movie was Extremely Violent. I haven’t read the draft, but I understand it was darker, more violent, and an even more brooding satire of the genre. I would be surprised if you found the animated cat in it.

BR: Or the T-1000 cameo, the Sharon Stone cameo, that’s not parodying the Jack Slater movie, that’s parodying the business, they should have stuck to the world of the film within a film, Jack Slater 4, as if it really existed.

EL: Yeah, you have the E.T. joke, you have a lot of references to “movies” that dilutes the power of the references to the action genre itself.

End part 1.

Stay tuned for part 2, in which Mr. Lichtenfeld and I discuss ticket prices, Air Force One, Michael Bay’s anti-intellectualism, the silly side of Rambo, his future literary projects, plus more!

Thanks for reading.

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp

AWAY WE GO - GIVEAWAY

I appreciate this film as a quiet examination into the lives of two people who are surrounded by chaos.

What’s most fascinating about AWAY WE GO is that Sam Mendes went from Revolutionary Road to this. From a depressing portrait on suburban life to a picture that dabbles in a little drama and a little comedy the movie works because of co-writers Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the upcoming film Where The Wild Things Are) and his wife Vendela Vida. The movie actually has moments of both sadness and delight. To vacillate between the two takes some talent and the two of them pull it off. Between John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph the duo are able to find the happiness in the sadness and the strength to keep going on when it seems that the whole world is going mad.

The movie is simply one that’s a delight to watch at least once and I have 2 copies of it on Blu-ray that I am giving away to anyone who is able to e-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and tell me your favorite Eggers book.

Product description:

When slacker thirtysomething couple Burt (John Krasinski) and Verona (Maya Rudolph) discover that his parents are moving overseas, the duo — who expect their first child in a few months — set off on a cross-country tour to figure out where they should lay down some roots in Sam Mendes’ poignant comedy Away We Go. They visit a number of different cities, and meet with a different friend or family member’s family at each stop. Their hosts include a set of emotionally detached parents (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan), a pair of overprotective new-age parents (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton), and old college pals (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey), who have adopted a number of kids. Novelist Dave Eggers wrote the script with Vendela Vida. Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

THE NOSTRADAMUS FILES - REVIEW

I have to implore you, for those who haven’t seen it, to check out the Orson Welles’ narrated The Man Who Saw Tomorrow. Released in 1981, I remember seeing this as a young lad and being mystified at this purported sage of the future. Of course I believed everything I saw and I ate this whole thing up. I was amazed and intrigued by the premise of who this guy was and I will never forget the ending of this movie: Nostradamus predicts the rise of a man who is armed with nuculear weapons and living in the middle east. I don’t know about you but in 1981 the only threat to us was the USSR and even then, with movies like The Day After in 1983 scaring the ever loving hell out of people, the middle east never occurred to a lot of people as being capable of much.

Fast forward almost 30 years and see where we are. Yes, it’s a little hocus-pocus and it’s a lot of loose interpretation but, to me, Nostradamus is still a side show I am willing to pay to watch. The guy was a little kooky and you absolutely could find people today to say how wrong he was but the History channel’s documentary of the guy ranks right up with entertainment worthy of your collection.

For those of us who are endlessly fascinated by the man this is a delightful companion piece. With

Product description:

Examine the eerie predictions of history’s greatest prophet in this doomsday-themed collection from HISTORY™. Nostradamus’ apocalyptic visions and other ancient prophecies that promise a major – and perhaps catastrophic – change to life as we know it are explored in two exciting and insightful documentaries. Many people have believed that we are approaching a year of unprecedented, and even deadly, upheaval. Are there real, verifiable connections between the prophecies of the past and what is happening in the world today? Are the signs of the apocalypse happening before our eyes? More importantly, could the ancient prophecies of a coming apocalypse be realized today? THE NOSTRADAMUS FILES COLLECTION includes: The Lost Book of Nostradamus; and Nostradamus 2012.

BONUS FEATURES: Feature length documentary: Nostradamus: 500 Years Later, Additional Footage: The Sun, The Egyptians, End of Time, The Hopi, and The Masons

DISC 1: The Lost Book of Nostradamus / Bonus Nostradamus: 500 Years Later

DISC 2: Nostradamus 2012 / Bonus additional footage

LIFE AFTER PEOPLE: SEASON ONE - REVIEW

I don’t want to creep a whole lot of you out but I do think about decomposition every now and then.

The idea of wondering what happens as, specifically, the human body succumbs to the earth fascinates my mind. How does a corpse go from formaldahyde display object to liquidy goo? What organisms are responsible for the speed of this process? Part of my interest in the History channel series of Life After People: The Series is wondering what indeed would be civilization’s own path if we were to just leave our current landscape to its own devices? The end result would be a little different than that of Will Smith’s apocolypse in I Am Legend but it gives you a good idea of where this series will take you.

Part science, part theory the series offered me the opportunity to see how objects, animals and, really, the earth would go on spinning without the meddling of homo sapiens. The CGI enhancements to the episodes, while a little clunky at times, add another cinematic level to what is ostensibly a great “What if?” premise of the series on the whole.  The series is an engaging look at the science behind material decomposition and the possibilities that lay behind the theory of what would happen if people did suddenly vanish and I could not have been more entertained going through this season’s discs.

Product Description:

What would happen if every human being on Earth disappeared? This isn t the story of how we might vanish it is the story of what happens to the world we leave behind. Building off the success of the HISTORY two-hour special Life After People, this series continues the exploration of a world wiped clean of humanity, in even more vivid detail.

Each episode is a stunningly graphic examination of how the very landscape of planet Earth would change in our absence, using cinematic CGI to reveal in scientific detail the fate of every aspect of the man-made world. What happens to the millions of animals that supply our food? The chemicals stored in industrial complexes? Which animals take over subways? Do satellites fall to Earth? When does Mt. Rushmore wither away? Every episode will unfold in the hours, days, months and years after people disappear and will combine three to four different kinds of stories, from animal outbreaks to structural collapses, building to a unique visual finale. Welcome to Earth, population zero.

DRAG ME TO HELL - Giveaway

I loved this film.

I know there are those who want to come off as tough, macho or jaded by simple scares but this movie delivered on the promise of being a light and airy horror film that walked the line of being solidly thrilling and unabashedly funny at times. For those who did see Sam Raimi’s return to horror and appreciated the work that went into it this was a breath of fresh crypt air coming off of a not so memorable motion picture experience that was Spider-Man 3.

If you enjoyed the experience of the film and would like to add it to your collection please shoot me a note at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and let me know your favorite Sam Raimi film. That’s it and you’re entered.

A description:

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is on her way to having it all: a devoted boyfriend (Justin Long), a hard-earned job promotion, and a bright future. But when she’s forced to make a tough decision that evicts an elderly woman from her house, Christine becomes the victim of an evil curse. Now she has only three days to dissuade a dark spirit from stealing her soul before she is dragged to hell for an eternity of unthinkable torment. Director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man and The Evil Dead Trilogy) returns to the horror genre with a vengeance in the film that critics rave is “the most crazy, fun and terrifying horror movie in years!” (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly)

Ari Gold - Interview

You can’t help but ask the question.

You try and avoid it as you half expect a Bill O’Reilly meltdown should you ask it but I couldn’t resist by the end of the interview with Ari Gold to ask him about…Ari Gold. The director/writer who has created a really special independent film called Adventures of Power was making the film festival rounds earlier this year and that now is playing in select theaters around the country. The movie deals with the very fundamental idea of being your own person and ignoring the pressures of others to capitulate and conform but what makes this movie so remarkable is its wondrous soundtrack, creative cinematography, solid acting and performances from the likes of Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, Adrian Grenier and the very alluring Shoshannah Stern.

I had a chance to talk with Ari months ago as it was preparing to make its theatrical bow and did ask the question about whether having his name as of late in this pop culture we live in has made it difficult to get dinner reservations.

CHRISTOPHER STIPP:  I’ve seen a couple of the shorts that you did and this obviously represents something of a larger scale for you. How was it making the transition from short form to long form? What did you find when the rubber hit the road?

ARI GOLD: It was unbelievably difficult to shoot because I set myself up for a lot of challenges by shooting all over the country and starting to shoot before we finished  raising the money. Having a huge cast and dance sequences and everything that you could possible do to make a shoot difficult, I did.

(Laughs)

So, I feel like I can survive anything now.  Looking back on Helicopter, for example, that was something that when I wrote that…“OK, animated helicopter crash and toy cars going through a toy San Francisco” all the stuff I did with that in a very different way. And the same thing with this script, I was asked, “How are you going to shoot in a factory?  How are you going to shoot dance sequences?  How are you going to pull off all this stuff for low budget?”  And, usually, the answer to all that is incredible hard work to try and get something for nothing and trying to get people on board who are really into working in less than Hollywood conditions.

CS:  And certainly, Michael McKean and Jane Lynch spring to mind that it’s amazing that you got them in the role for someone like yourself who – I don’t know how much juice or how much pull you have was it difficult for you to get those guys?

GOLD: I have no pull at all.

(Laughs)

No manager, just a script and a casting director.  Mainly I think it was the script that made Jane get on board and she really liked it and believed it and liked what I was doing.  I think it helped Michael McKean to read it because Jane was already on board and they knew each other.  The movie gave him a chance to do something that he doesn’t often have the chance to do.  Just to play a serious, dramatic role which is ironic given that it’s an air-drumming movie, but the role is really dramatic and at the heart of the movie and people see him as an improvisational comedy actor and here is something that was scripted and he’s playing a small time union organizer and it’s an interesting thing for him and I think he was glad to have that opportunity.

We had an answer from him quickly and that was great!

CS:  And you bring that up too that it was a juxtaposition of a very sort of farcical comedy with a very dramatic edge embedded in it.  When you made it, was it your intention to have these two things living simultaneously in the same film?

GOLD: Yes, absolutely.  There was no way I could have spent three years of my life making a movie that was just based on some little thing that I thought looked funny.  Air drumming was always for me a metaphor for powerless people trying to find power in themselves.  It’s funny because these characters are trying to drum but they don’t have any drums but actually on a different level it’s a story of working people trying to survive in America and on a spiritual level it’s about people who feel deficient because he doesn’t have drums and he always wants them and then over the course of the movie he discovers drums are within him and that part of the story is what kept me going and kept me motivated.

Something I grapple with in my own life is finding the strength within myself – finding the drums within my self – and not sure what it’s about.  So, yea, that was always on my mind and everyday working with the actors, I treated it, I don’t want to say I treated it as a drama, but I wanted everyone to take the story seriously and let the absurdity of what’s actually happening be funny and yet the emotions that are driving everyone real.

CS:  And the music is definitely important.  To that end, you must have gotten a lot of clearances…as soon as the movie was done I immediately raced to iTunes …you selected some great selection of drum themed songs, Kyrie starts it off for example. Was that a new process for you of obtaining clearances and all that for the music you wanted to use?

GOLD: That was a big part of the process.  It was just one more of the things – that’s one thing you should not do is put famous songs into a movie because you can’t afford them and I had a combination of a great music supervisor, Robin Kaye, was willing to pull out her Rolodex and make calls and pitch the movie to artists and managers and such and I had a lot of time on my hands to listen to thousands of songs from 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, trying to pick stuff and working with my brother Ethan who is a brilliant musician and not only composed 25 songs of different genres in the movie but when we wanted to use a licensed song we’d have five suggestions for every one I had in my head.  It was a big process.

There were a lot of songs that were in the original script that didn’t end up in the movie because we couldn’t clear them before the shoot.  But that’s also where my brother came in because when there was a certain song that I wanted but didn’t get he would compose something that was not only the type of song I wanted but also very funny and he would take it to a different level and my brother’s songs I think fit easily with the big theme songs in the movie.  They all feel like they are part of the right period.  I saw it as a musical.  A level of drama or melodrama that is like a musical and instead of singing… air drums.

CS:  Shooting in the Southwest.  Did that present its own challenges as you decided to shoot in this tiny, tiny town.  How did you find these places?

GOLD: I lived in New Mexico for a while. My aunt lived there and I lived in her basement, much as Power does.  So I got to know particularly the southwestern portion of New Mexico which is not a very touristy area.  Not so beautiful, lots of copper mines.  When I was researching some of the label stuff and started to work on the script I went back and spent a couple weeks traveling around, mostly New Mexico and Arizona but a little bit in Nevada, Colorado and Utah.  And one or two days in the El Paso side of Texas.  I spent a huge amount of time seeing all these places and taking in the feeling of them and talking to people who were on strike by sheer chance when I was there in trying to get a sense of what life was like in these towns.

A frustrating thing was falling in love with the look and the people at certain times and getting shut out by the local factories that knew that – the court would clear stuff in advance and we’d have to tell them where we’d be shooting that there’s this and there’s this and also there’s a strike and a labor battle and one of the big corporations that owns a couple different companies in the region found out about some of the political stuff or whatever you want to call it in the movie and shut us out and even though the local plant managers and the local people and the bar owners were thrilled to have us there it was like racquetball.  We would get approval from 99% of what we needed in the town and then get whacked by the corporate office and then the police and then we’d have to tell the people we’re not coming to your town to shoot.  So that was a frustrating thing but we ended up having a small miracle in Utah where this huge and beautiful power plant let us in and let us shoot everything we wanted and the local film board was really supportive so it ended up working out.  All the scouting that I did, including the pictures that I sent you, it really helped in terms of research in showing stuff to the production designer and trying to capture the feelings of all these towns I’d seen in the one town we did end up shooting in.

CS:  I have to commend Lisa Wiegand’s cinematography.  It’s just gorgeous to look at and it’s such an un-comedy because of the technical elements that just aren’t there in “comedy” nowadays.

GOLD: One of my favorite comedies, and I’m not sure you could really call it a comedy, is Repo Man.  My film doesn’t have the same kind of look that Repo Man has but in the way that film captures place and captures a real sense of environment, I wanted to go for that.  It was over the top in its color but also sense of realness – the heart-ness of these people’s lives.

CS:  And it does.  It takes a very serious turn with riot police when they enter the stage.  You are having a good time with Power but then these other sub plots brings you to a different place.  When you try and take in the narrative, like I said, it’s not normally the route you would go for such an over the top idea of an air drummer.

GOLD: And for most of the audiences that watch the movie, they are able to go with that run.  We played it for a union gathering in Sacramento, California and people were cheering up on their feet saying it was the best movie they had seen in years and they get that.  And then there are some audiences that want it to be a cynical comedy that makes the protagonist and everyone in it look like an ass.  And this movie doesn’t do that.  It asks you to take the character seriously at the same time that you’re laughing at the situation.  I’m really happy with the tip-toe that the tone takes.  It works for most people – at least the people I wanted to reach but there are people who don’t get it but that’s the risk you take.

CS:  Right.  Exactly.  And according to some of the reviews, those that get it, get it.  But those that want to dismiss it as Napoleon Dynamite 3 years too late I think miss the point completely.  In fact, the movie almost takes an over the top idea of these movies where a guy goes and trains, like the movies I remember as a kid of a guy training really hard only to win in the end and it sends those ideas up by the end.

GOLD: Yes.  Funny thing is I got that flack from some people who saw it as a Napoleon Dynamite influence and it was sort of disappointing because I had been playing this character before Napoleon Dynamite existed.  I actually liked Napoleon Dynamite and actually showed it to my cast up in Utah and they were wild about the movie.  They didn’t feel that it was a rip off thing but this is someone who gets small town life again.  Because people who live in small towns get that.  It’s not that Napoleon Dynamite invented the weirdness of small towns.

CS:  I’m really curious to know about the dance sequence you brought up.  I’m a big fan of it. Did you always have something like that in mind in the movie, in the script, saying a dance sequence?

GOLD: Are you talking about the one in the ghetto?

CS:  Yes.

GOLD: That one was – most of the dance sequences were written in – that was one I wrote in and kept in every other draft it was in and out and in and out and I couldn’t decide.  I wondered if I could get that absurd in that section of the movie and then I decided that I had to go that absurd right there.  And I’m very happy with the way it turned out.  It’s a strange thing because it was such a long period of time and shot it in sections, almost like five short films.  I was constantly trying to make sure that the new sections that I shot would fit in tonally with the sections I shot 6, 7, 8, or 9 months before.  And that was one of the last things I shot but that’s exactly what I wanted.  That musical comedy thing to happen.

CS:  It is and it fit.  Like I said it sent up that idea of the musical interlude which is so prevalent in a lot of movies of this kind and fits in obviously perfectly.  Getting  Shoshannah and Adrian and even Neil Peart, who I always thought, or I always read that he is like a reclusive guy who doesn’t like to be out there that much, was it difficult getting Neil in the movie?

GOLD: The initial call was made by Robin Kaye, our music supervisor, but I couldn’t have been more thrilled with the way it appeared but the whole Rush organization – everyone who works with that band has just been so generous and welcoming and really went above and beyond.  Not that they even had a call to duty – they had no obligation – they just let us use their song which was so generous but also their time and energy and I don’t know quite how that happened….

(Laughs)

But, they must have liked the project and thought it was the right spirit.  They started from nothing too and I think they recognize that as a filmmaker I’m scratching two pennies together to try and make gold and they did the same thing and I think they respected that and it was just a real pleasure.  They have been very helpful in getting the word out about the movie.  They are great!  Adrian plays in a band with me so it wasn’t so hard to reach him.  I just have to look behind me and see his face.  And I know it was a great chance for him to stretch his wings out because he doesn’t normally get offered these kinds of comedy roles and I think he’s fantastic in the movie – just hilarious.  And people really respond well when they see him.  He’s almost unrecognizable because people are used to seeing him as straight arrow and he plays this wild country character.  And Shoshannah was also a struck of luck because I wrote a character that was deaf and yet completely ridiculous, self effacing and I knew I had to find someone who had the right sense of humor and not being deaf and not being from that community I didn’t know what would be offensive, what would be right, what would be wrong.  I had some deaf bloggers I was writing back and forth and wanted to make sure I got the story right and didn’t cross any lines.

But I knew I had to find someone who was actually hard of hearing playing the part because I didn’t want to have a potentially a black face thing with that part.  Oh cast the starlet and the starlet might have been the right one for that role but I just couldn’t do that.  So finding someone who is as charming and funny and a great actress and great spirit as Shoshannah was just incredible luck.  I didn’t even know she existed as an actress until someone told me about this girl on Weeds to go check her out.  And that was just lucky.

CS:  You mentioned things being a stroke of luck when these things fell into place, are you used to that as a filmmaker or are you more used to being set up for failure in terms of not getting what you want?

GOLD: Interesting question.  There aren’t that many movies that shoot for 13 months.  Certainly not that many independent comedies have the lead actor break their arm on set, getting shut out of 13 locations because of political problems…

(Laughs)

I guess you could call that bad luck.  We had some huge challenges getting the movie finished but all movies have huge challenges getting finished, particularly when you are small budget and if you have a lot of ambition you are asking for trouble and we got a lot of trouble but we also had great things happen too.

You can see from that everything from the casting to the shooting what it was like thunderstorms during our desert shoots or having certain actors back out because of cult advice…

(Laughs)

It just happens and if you are open to it and just go with the flow like Power has to do, if something horrendously ridiculous has happened and you are prepared and loose and the wind blows hard, you bend but you don’t break.  We had a lot of hurricanes to deal with.  Good lessons.  One day when I had probably 6 different religions of people on set praying for the rain to stop, not sure who had the direct line to the weather but….yeah.

CS:  So how has the experience been going around to festivals and around the globe showing the movie?  What has it taught you about the hustler side of getting a film made?  You have your artistic thing made and now it’s down to business and get this thing out there so people will see it.

GOLD: I’ve had to learn again Power’s lesson of making something of nothing.  I think it’s a fantasy that a lot of filmmakers and all artist’s, dance, painters, everyone who does something like this, kind of secretly hoping that the clouds are going to open and a giant hand will come down and lift you up to heaven – up to creative and financial heaven.  And that rarely happens.  And has not happened here, yet.  At the same time what I am getting is getting emails from all over the world saying, yea, I’d like to help out.  I saw the film, I told my friends, what can I do?  I’d like to be a part of it.  And so that spirit is exciting.  So some days I’m tired of doing the business side and other times it’s the way it should be.  It’s inspiring in a way.

Welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV where I never cease to be amazed by FOX.

Just last week the FOX network put out a press release about the exciting programming we could expect for the sweeps season. In the day-by-day breakdown we were informed of all of the pending action, drama and great guest stars coming up on DOLLHOUSE. The network also started sending out press screener copies of the next two installments of DOLLHOUSE to wet critic appetites to show them the forthcoming Whedonistic brilliance so they could shout from the rooftops to tell the masses to watch for they would be amazed! What is the network now doing to cash in on this? Apparently they have decided to put the show on the backburner during sweeps and instead air repeats of HOUSE and BONES.

JOSS WHEDON commented on this situation via whedonesque.com. Here’s an excerpt:

“Howzabout that schedule? Well, I’m not as depressed as everyone else. We weren’t about to rock sweeps anyway, and though there’s a chilly November, December is CRAZY. It’s like an Advent calendar of episodes! We get November to try to spread the word (which I’ll be leaning on Fox to do, though it’s hard to imagine them doing as good a job as the WhyIWatch guy) and then December is pure gluttony. Plus the episodes line up extremely well in these pairs, and we’ll have an absurdly appropriate lead-in.”

The saddest part of all I think is that those aforementioned press screeners are starting to turn the heads of critics and produce buzz for the show that the network won’t even be able to cash in on. Herc at AICN said that both the fourth and fifth episodes of the show were great and do a wonderful job of telegraphing the conflict that is to come. Matt Roush of TV Guide has said that this Friday’s episode is the best of this season and Maureen Ryan (THE WATCHER of the Chicago Tribune) says it’s possibly the best emotionally charged of the series so far.

After seeing this past Friday’s episode, titled BELONGING, I would have to agree with them all. The episode, written by JED WHEDON and MAURISSA TANCHAROEN and directed by JONATHAN FRAKES, was by far one of the best of the series so far and for me it brought for me some closure on a lingering question after last seasons episode titled NEEDS. In NEEDS we saw the Active named SIERRA confront a doctor who apparently had her somehow put in the DOLLHOUSE for his own twisted desires. Even though the show constantly travels in the grey area of what is right and what is wrong the characters that run the DOLLHOUSE always seemed to at least have a certain code that they lived by and this seemed out of scope. Part of what made the DOLLHOUSE somewhat palatable was that all the actives were volunteers who knew what they were signing up for and were willing to trade off the bad for the good at the end.

In BELONGING we find out how SIERRA was actually brought to the DOLLHOUSE and the story that we were shown, for this writer, was a completely engrossing and emotional tale. The acting, the directing, and the writing all came together to form 44 minutes of television that I couldn’t take my eyes away from. FRAN KRANZ, DICHEN LACHMEN, OLIVIA WILLIAMS and HARRY J. LENNIX all knocked it out of the park. I don’t really want to go into detail on what happens in the episode because with our forced and unanticipated break you will have a chance to watch this episode at FOX.COM or HULU.COM and if you haven’t I would strongly encourage you to take the time to do so. 

Ah well. At least we still have nine more episodes to enjoy before it is all over and we’ll be able to consume them in a December all-you-can-watch buffet!

Now that we’ve completely gone over the horror of FOX let’s see what else we can scare up for the spooky week to come.

MONDAY

CHECK LOCAL LISTING - In case you haven’t found just the write costume for your four legged friend it’s the Halloween Petacular on THE MARTHA STEWART SHOW.  

NBC - 8:oo PM: Although not intentional I’m sure HEROES will once again be quite the horror show (or train wreck, take your pick).

CBS - 8:00 PM: Aww, who am I kidding? The entire Monday night comedy lineup is in repeates tonight because next week is sweeps.

NBC - 9:00 PM: It’s a Halloween party gone all kinds of wrong on TRAUMA.

ABC - 10:00 PM: CASTLE and BECKETT get called in to a graveyard to investigate a staked vampire. FILLION also has a very familiar looking costume for ALL HALLLOW’S EVE.

AMC - 10:00 PM: The original HALLOWEEN is on complete with a painted white CAPTIAN KIRK mask.

TUESDAY

ABC - 8:00 PM: It’s been another year so it is time to once again be reminded of why a pile of leaves and a went sucker don’t mix with IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN. Why Linus, why do you torture yourself every year?

AMC - 8:00 PM: MICHAEL MYERS once again escapes from the hospital and whakiness ensues in HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS.

CHILLER - 9:00 PM: The tragic death of BRANDON LEE is just one part of the creepiness of THE CROW.

WEDNESDAY

CARTOON - 7:30 PM: See how it all began with SCOOBY DOO! THE MYSTERY BEGINS.

NBC - 8:00 PM: A paid advertisement never looked so glossy with tonight’s airing of MONSTERS VS. ALIENS: MUTANT PUMPKINS FROM OUTER SPACE. Sounds more like a JIMMY NEUTRON episode doesn’t it?

ABC FAMILY - 8:00 PM: I’m just not sure if HOCUS POCUS is a Halloween classic or not. I also can’t believe it’s over 15 years old.

CMTV - 9:00 PM: I’ve heard of counter-programming against other shows, but against a holiday season? CMTV tries with NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION. No, seriously.

THURSDAY

NBC - 8:00 PM: COMMUNITY has a Day of the Dead party, PARKS & RECREATION has a Halloween party, THE OFFICE host a community haunted house and 30 ROCK doesn’t care that it’s Halloween.

ABC - 8:00 PM: Although not Halloween related at all how can I not mention FLASHFORWARD with DOMINIC MONAGHAN making his firtst full episode appearance?

AMC - 8:00 PM: The most frightening part of END OF DAYS is SCHWARZENEGGER’S acting.

FRIDAY

CBS - 8:00 PM: Melinda gets haunted by THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN on GHOST WHISPERER.

TRAVEL - 8:00 PM: GHOST ADVENTURES LIVE! performs a “lockdown” paranormal investigation at the historic Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia. Last time I heard of someone being locked in an asylum the end product was FREDDY KRUEGER. This might not end well.

AMC - 8:00 PM: Want to get into the Halloween spirit without all the fright? Take in the comedy classic YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

CBS - 9:00 PM: Just like Allison on this week’s MEDIUM I’ve dreamt of being in scenes of the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD but thankfully I’ve never woken up with bruises and bite marks from them…. at least not without a lot of tequila the night before.

SATURDAY

Do you really need me to mention things today? If you have kids you are building up for trick-or-treating and if you don’t you are either sitting in the house quiet with the lights out avoiding trick-or-treaters or you are at a party. OK, fine, here’s a few tid-bits.

AMC - 6:00 AM: The day stars with EARTH VS. SPIDER and ends with THIRTEEN GHOSTS. Everything inbetween is nothing but cheesy goodness.

COMEDY - 7:00 PM: The original SCARY MOVIE is at times far from funny but definitely not scary.

BRAVO - 9:00 PM: Watch all of HANNIBAL tonight and you’ll never look at RAY LIOTTA the same way again.

LIFETIME - 9:00 PM: I have to admit that VACANCY was the first film of the genre in a while that had me from beginning to end.

SUNDAY

SYFY - 12:30 PM: Before becoming a crappy 80’s television series there were the mini-series V and V: THE FINAL BATTLE. SYFY cashes in on ABC’s re-invention airing later this week by running both mini-series back-to-back. Yeah, I admit it, I’m gonna watch.

SHO - 9:00 PM: With absolutely no advance viewing I have to guess that this is the week where DEXTER. Can’t wait to see if I’m right.

- Will Wilkins wrote this with a touch of bitterness and a side of discontent.

Adult Swim’s Dana Snyder and Quick Stop Entertainment’s Ken Plume set out to have a literate conversation between two pals, but inevitably devolve into a verbal, and funny, free-for-all full of bickering, infighting, and the special kind of male bonding that comes from conflict expressed through the podcast medium.

Actor/comedian/raconteur Dana Snyder, you’re certainly aware, is Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake, Squidbillies‘ Granny, Minoriteam’s Dr. Wang, and The Venture Bros.‘ Alchemist. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs (bat availability pending), you can keep tabs on him via his website, www.eyeofthesnyder.com.

Ken Plume is the editor-in-chief here at Quick Stop. He is a friend of Dana’s, as well as his arch-nemesis.

VISIT THE SNYDECAST EXPERIENCE

KEN P.D. SNYDECAST #118: It’s A Gas - Ken & Dana return with an exploration of a stew man who never existed, a meat processing company’s storied history, how best to celebrate Nacho Day, and so much more, it hurts.

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #118 (MP3 format) – 69.84 MB

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Got something to say? E-mail Dana & Ken at the Snydecast mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SNYDECAST ARCHIVES

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The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide - your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support Quick Stop by using the links below to make any impulse purchases - it helps to keep us going…)

When new editions of previously released titles come out, it’s always difficult to determine whether there is a significant difference in image/sound quality or bonus features to make a re-purchase worth it. And sometimes, it’s an easy decision - and that’s the case with Black Adder Remastered: The Ultimate Edition (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$79.98 SRP) and Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection Remastered (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP). On the new Black Adder set - in addition to all of the previously available material - the set adds the newly-produced, in-depth anniversary documentary Blackadder Rides Again, as well as an hour-plus clutch of unedited interviews recorded for the documentary. Not only are the episodes completely remastered and looking better than ever on the new Fawlty set, but John Cleese has recorded new commentaries in addition to brand new interviews with the cast, including the previously unavailable Connie Booth, outtakes, the previously available director’s commentaries, and the Torquay Tourist Guide documentary short.

Haven’t you always wanted a monkey? Even if you don’t have a million dollars, you can still snag yourself a nifty little beanie version of Thinkgeek’s loveable mascot, Timmy the Monkey ($6.99). Perfect for desks, shelves, gifts, or even - imagine this - kids.

As much as I love Larry Sanders, I will always hold a special place in my heart for It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (Shout Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$159.99 SRP) - and I am beyond delighted that not only is it now available on DVD, but it’s the whole series, to boot. If that weren’t enough, Shandling has cooperated with a nice batch of bonus features. This is a must-have set for a must-see show.

The butt of many a joke but not nearly as bad as it’s been made out to be (though it’s still an overlong, pretentious flick), Kevin Costner’s bloated, sweeping wetpic Waterworld (Universal, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$26.98 SRP) is now available in high-definition. Sadly, there are no bonus features. None. Not a drop.

King of the gimmicky 50’s fright flicks, William Castle gets his own spotlight collection bringing together 8 of those cult films into one box set - The William Castle Film Collection (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$80.95 SRP). The films in question are 13 Frightened Girls, 13 Ghosts, Homicidal, Strait-Jacket, The Old Dark House, Mr. Sardonicus, The Tingler, & Zotz!. Bonus features include a clutch of featurettes, trailers, rare intros, and more.

With its 4th season now on DVD, Bones (Fox, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$69.99 SRP) has evolved into a delightful, quirky, accessible, askew take on the long-smoldering rom-com TV dynamic, like a cross between CSI & Moonlighting, thanks to the wonderful chemistry between David Boreanaz & Emily Deschanel. Oh, and Stephen Fry turns up. Bonus materials include featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel.

Goofy, trippy, and odd - really think of any term that evokes the word bizarre and you’re apt to come as close to capturing what it’s like watching The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack (Cartoon Network, Not Rated, DVD-$14.97 SRP), Cartoon Network’s little shoe that could and Paul Sabourin’s guilty pleasure. The first volume features 5 episodes, plus a quartet of featurettes.

While not holding a candle to the classics of the 1960’s, there’s still plenty of fun to be had with the specials contained in the Peanuts: 1970’s Collection - Volume 1 (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP). The 2-disc collection features Play It Again, Charlie Brown, You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown, There’s No Time For Love, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, It’s a Mystery, Charlie Brown, and It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, plus a featurette on the creation of Snoopy’s avian sidekick, Woodstock.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, The Eleventh Hour (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$34.95) was a show that only made it to 18 episodes, and wouldn’t have been able to make the journey to DVD if it weren’t for Warners’ on-demand service through WBShop.com. The 6-disc set contains all 18 episodes of Rufus Sewell starring in a nerdy version of The X-Files.

They both have their charms (though the original far outstrips the 90’s remake), but know you can get both versions of Miracle On 34th Street (Fox, Not Rated/Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$34.99 SRP each) in full high definition, just in time for the holiday season. The 90’s flick is featureless, but the original contains an audio commentary, the AMC Backstory, featurettes, a promo short, and a poster gallery.

Delve into the historical, cultural, and religious roots of the Santa Claus myth via In Search Of Santa Claus (Infinity, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP), an interesting look at the jolly fat man, as we quickly approach that time of year.

One of the earliest TV shows to get onto DVD was Ally McBeal. That was a long time ago, and no further seasons were ever released. Now, however fans can finally get Ally McBeal: The Complete First Season (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) - and, shockingly, it’s got all of the original music.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

-Ken Plume

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