April's DVD Reviews, Part II
Quick reviews from my Netflix queue and/or the library.




Grey's Anatomy: Season 2, Disc 2
Prognosis: It's not that bad, but not that good either.  Why do I watch?  The title character's affect is as flat as her ass, but guess which I'm paying more attention to? (See the title of the show for clues.)

Threshold: First and (thankfully) only season, Discs 1-4
This came out around the same time as vaguely rip-off sister-shows Invasion and Surface, but was perhaps the worst of the lot.  Simply no clue where to go with a potentially promising premise, it devolves into a cop drama without any awareness of how to spool out enough mystery to string along viewers (see Lost for an example of a successful version of just such an on-going experiment).  It's no surprise it dipped below the Nielsen threshold well before even the first run of shows was finished production and the series was canceled.

An Evening with Kevin Smith, 2002
I'm not saying he should be in front of the camera, but clearly his talent isn't so much behind it as telling stories about generally being around cameras and the folks who finance his (often inept) use of them.

Cujo, 1983
Not as good as I remembered it when I was a kid and we watched it on VHS, but it's still fairly effective at exploiting a legitimate fear.  This was, of course, back when Stephen King still had some not-complete-contrived fears left to write about.

The Ten, 2007
Dammit, Paul Rudd, you're capable of better than this.  Not that I didn't like it for what it was... a throwback to the slapstick comedies of the late '80s that TBS reruns at 4am, only with folks you'd recognize from Comedy Central today.

Nip/Tuck: Season 4, Discs 1&2
This show is more in need of rejuvenation than the patients on it.  To say that the plots have gotten sillier and more soap opera-ish would be to indict the entire series since that's a good description of what they've always been.  No, it's something about the execution so far this season that's guilty of malpractice.

Tom Green: Inside & Outside the Box: Disc 3, 1997
They never reveal it, but the premise here was to give an unfunny Canadian a talk show and tell him he has to do anything he can to make teenagers laugh or they'll shoot him.  Clever he isn't, but he makes a fool of himself the way most folks do when there's someone off camera giving commands down the barrel of a gun.

I Am Legend, 2007
Not legendary, sorry.  It's an updated (i.e., CGI this time around) version of The Omega Man (1971), one of the three speculative fiction flicks Charlton Heston made (the others being Planet of the Apes (1968) and Soylent Green (1973)) that really got you thinking about the future the first time you saw them.  This doesn't.  It's about as substantive as the piece of shit War of the Worlds remake we were subjected to a couple years ago that, along with this one makes me welcome an alien invasion or apocalyptic virus.

Penn & Teller: Bullsh*t!: Season 2: Disc 2, 2004
What more can you say about this show other than they call 'em out and shoot 'em down.  These guys should get funding for this kind of public service, especially when they nail the government itself.

Van Halen: The Van Halen Story: The Early Years, 2003
Documentary video produced from old interviews with the principals and new interviews with the peripherals (read: roadies and the Pete Best of the band).  Boring for most of the world, but great stuff if you're living in the past and willing to accept anything reminiscent of it not matter how mediocre... much like those folks who bought tickets to the comeback tour this year.

Curb Your Enthusiasm: Season 6: Disc 2, 2007
You like this show or you hate it.  Either way, it's probably a good litmus test about how you feel about me, so screw you.

Battlestar Fracking Galactica: Season 3: Disc 2, 2006
Don't waste your time watching anything other than this show for the next couple years since everything that follows will be a pale imitation.

David Gilmour: Remember That Night: Live at the Royal Albert Hall: Disc 2, 2007
Extras, mostly.  High-quality home movies, in fact, if you want to know the truth, but if you dig Dave, then you'll enjoy a lot of this.  There's even a fairly lengthy jam session with him and Rick with a bass player and drummer sitting around in a barn that's worth the price of admission even if you don't care for all the behind the scenes stuff.

The L Word: Season 4: Disc 4, 2007
Nothing memorable.  Remarkably less drama than I've come to expect from this much estrogen with no men to blame.

Candid Camera: 5 Decades of Smiles: Disc 8, 1949
More good stuff.  The idea behind the show was always good, but it took until in my lifetime before we got to the perfect storm of the technical sophistication of pinhole cameras and wireless micro mics coupled with clever set-ups that were funny in and of themselves.  It could only be better when the Japanese took the idea and ran with it in a society not nearly so litigious.

PICKS OF THE LITTER: Okay, I don't think The Ten knocks it out of the park, but there's a lot to like here. An Evening with Kevin Smith gets the same description; fans of his will love it, all three of them who haven't seen this yet anyway.  Similarly, hardcore Floyd fans will love all the extras on Disc 2 of David Gilmour: Remember That Night, all three of them who haven't whacked off to it yet anyway.  And if you haven't put Battlestar Fracking Galactica in your queue, you must be a fracking toaster.




Copyright 2008 Ale[x]plorer.
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