Category Archives: DVD
Him & Her: Season 1
In my slightly sheltered world there has been very little buzz about ‘Him & Her’. This is surprising because the second season recently began in the UK on BBC Three. Let me be upfront: I think this is great and it is definitely worth re-visiting the first (short) season to catch up. Him & Her is a sedentary sit-com revolving around the mundane lives of two London twenty-somethings. Read the rest of this entry
That Whole Skywalker Thing
Okay, if you live under a rock and have never seen (or heard of) The Empire Strikes Back, this post could contain spoilers. (Also, Rosebud is the name of the guy’s sled.) What’s more, if you are a die-hard Star Wars fan and a George Lucas apologist, you may find the post below disturbing. For the rest of you, let’s talk about the Skywalker thing.
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What DVDs did you get for Christmas?
Normally I buy my kids whatever the new blockbusters are on DVD. But IMO, there weren’t many good movies this year, so I got my kids (who are all teenagers) mostly cult classics. I think it’s safe for you to assume that my kids would appreciate them more, anyway.
My 15 year old son asked for and received:
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DVD Review: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan
Well, the series makes a whole lot more sense now.
And a whole lot less sense. (Spoilers below).
Big Man Japan
Since we’re talking movies, let me tell you about the best movie I’ve seen in awhile: Big Man Japan!
At first glance, it looks like a Godzilla movie with a giant human instead of Godzilla fighting the monsters.
It pretty much is. But it’s a lot more than that, too.
It’s awesome. Read the rest of this entry
Susan Boyle: hairy angel or savvy media manipulator?
Now that everyone with an internet connection has seen her performance on Britain’s Got Talent at least once, and Susan Boyle has begun her stateside media tour, there’s an emerging meme that maybe she’s not all that she seemed. Reports are flooding in: she lied about never being kissed! She was caught wearing a leather jacket! She’s started trimming her eyebrows!
The subtext—and, in some cases, the text—of these reports is that there may be a backlash coming if her fans feel they’ve been snookered. I’d like to go on the record now that if it turns out Susan Boyle knew what she was doing all along, my admiration for her will increase exponentially: she goes from being a dowdy-looking English Scottish** villager with a good singing voice to a dowdy-looking English Scottish villager with a good singing voice and an amazing ability to exploit pop-culture media expectations. The latter is much more interesting and, yes, even admirable.
Go back and watch that clip again and see Simon Cowell’s reaction. If you look into his cold, dark eyes, you can see him figuring it out. There are very few people more media savvy than Simon, and he knows something’s up. That doesn’t stop him, of course, from giving Boyle a standing ovation—maybe that’s why he gave her one.
**Edited to account for my typical American ignorance of British sensitivities.
Ladyhawk Los Angeles 05-29-08
There’s some music that makes me want to gather it up in my arms and squeeze it so tight that it sinks into my body. I want to absorb into my bones, so I can carry the feeling it gives me around with me forever. Ladyhawk’s music is like that.
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Apple TV: So I Finally Did It
Well. I finally did it. After my kids manage to lose yet an other DVD and I looked at what replacing a Disney DVD cost I realized it was time to get the AppleTV. The way I figure it I need only justify the cost of 12 DVDs and I’ve paid for the AppleTV. Plus I get the convenience of having all the movies handy without having DVDs in a place where prying little hands can scratch them or worse put them in the trash.
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Interview: “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ and Cinematic Titanic
Some of my fondest memories of my childhood involve staying up late with my father and playing Space Invaders on our Atari 2600. For some reason, Dad loved that game. We figured out the cheat where if you held down the reset button while you powered up the console, the game would give you double missiles. But when we weren’t playing Space Invaders, we were usually watching really bad movies on late-night television. As we sat there, we’d mock the shows we were watching and die laughing. To us, alone, late at night, it was hilarious. Years later, when I first saw “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” I knew immediately what was going on. The show captured the mood of our experience exactly, along with a goofy sci-fi premise. The show was both legitimately hilarious, no matter what time of day you watched it, and about ten times more clever than expected. Random, often obscure, pop-culture references were peppered throughout. It was immediately familiar and yet unlike anything I had seen before. I loved it.
So when I recently had the chance to interview the creators of MST3000, who have revived their shtick for a project called Cinematic Titanic, which will be released in individual episodes on DVD and direct downloads, I jumped at the chance.
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