What does it say about the week’s new Blu-ray release slate that the biggest movie on the list acknowledges right in the title that it’s about a bunch of losers? It doesn’t bode well, I’ll tell you that. Follow us after the break for a look at what’s new in stores today.
Remember how great ‘Alias’ used to be? You know, during its first couple of seasons, before it fell to crap in the later years. The producers of USA’s new spy series ‘Covert Affairs’ sure do. The show is more or less a shameless ‘Alias’ clone. That’s OK, I’ll forgive it. I miss ‘Alias’, and the first episode of this one, ‘Pilot’, is well-made, decently-written, and a fair amount of fun. (Spoilers after the break.)
When I was a child of say 5 or 6 years-old, my mom found me throwing one of my G.I. Joe action figures into the ceiling fan. It wasn’t malicious or anything. I just wanted to see how far he’d fly. But as she explained, “That’s not how you play with toys.” I lost the privilege of playing with that particular toy for the rest of the day, and was only given it back when I showed that I knew the right way to play. We need to do the exact same thing with zombies and the videogame industry. They’re out of hand and it’s downright ridiculous. Some folks out there clearly don’t know how to play with their toys and need to have them taken away.
As far as newly-premiering shows go, the summer TV season has been kind of a bust so far. Two series that I thought looked promising, ‘The Good Guys‘ and ‘Scoundrels‘, haven’t lived up to their potential. I’ve continued to record ‘Good Guys’, but let the last few episodes get backlogged on my DVR. I don’t feel an urgent need to catch up right away. After three episodes of ‘Scoundrels’, I’ve decided that it’s just kind of boring and isn’t likely to get better. I doubt I will recap either one further. (‘Persons Unknown‘ has been the rare bright spot among the new batch of shows.) But I’m still willing to give anything a shot. Which brings us to A&E’s new police procedural, ‘The Glades’.
Wonder of wonders! A smart, complicated movie that undoubtedly alienated and confused those looking for “a trippy movie from the dude that did Batman” actually won the weekend roller derby! All right! Christopher Nolan’s dreamworld thriller ‘Inception,’ a movie I am absolutely gaga for, took home a surprisingly large haul this weekend. This comes after studio wags predicted that it might be a flop due to the somewhat murky marketing approach and less-than-bankable lead (Leonardo DiCaprio, who at this point should just be labeled a national treasure). Also, it isn’t based on a pre-existing franchise or a Sunday morning comic strip, which, to unambitious Hollywood types, is positively deathly. (And it’s not even in stupid-ass 3-D.) Still, it won the weekend! Or maybe I’m just dreaming…
This week’s Roundtable topic was suggested by site editor Mike Attebery, who will be joining us as a guest blogger. These days, it seems like all Hollywood produces anymore are sequels and remakes. Some of them are good, but many are terrible. Our Roundtable hashes out some of the best and worst of the sequels.
Despite the wonderful science fiction base of the show, ‘Futurama’ tends to go for the low hanging fruit. Sometimes, like in ‘Attack of the Killer App’ two weeks ago, that fruit is full of sweet nectar that can be refined into comedy gold. This weeks’ episode, ‘The Duh-Vinci Code’ was the other kind. It was like the apple you get that’s wonderful and ripe on one side and bruised on the other. ‘The Duh-Vinci Code’ isn’t the kind of apple you’d eat fresh. It should have been made into a pie, bread, or Waldorf salad.
This weekend’s big new movies – Disney’s ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice‘ and Warner Bros’ ‘Inception‘ – are big, hulking, hugely budgeted behemoths. And both are pretty diverting pop entertainments. (One’s better than the other. Read my reviews to find out which one!) But that doesn’t mean that if you’re in the mood for something smaller that you can’t get it. There are a couple of tiny movies that are just as deserving of your attention and well-earned movie buying dollars. Read on to find out more!
Remember when all home theater hook-up consisted of was the need to screw the pointy RF coax cable from the VCR into the TV? Sure, the picture and sound quality were crap, but we didn’t know any better at the time. We’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we? (Well, at least some of us have. My mother, not so much.) Through the evolution from RCA composite cables to S-video to Component video, we learned the benefits of separating out the various portions of the picture and sound signals to their own separate carriers. Then with HDMI, we learned how to combine them all back into one cable again. Now, an alliance of manufacturers has developed a new A/V connection called HDBaseT that it hopes will give HDMI the boot, and become the new all-in-one connection standard for home video and audio equipment. The question is, do we really need it?
What are you doing with your weekend? A group of six Dutch gamers are using their time to go for a new world record in endurance gaming. The group, or at least one member of the group, is planning to eclipse the current 40-hour world record for constant playing. Sure, you might think to yourself, “These guys have way too much time on their hands,” but what world record are you breaking this weekend? One of the very cool things about the event is that you can watch it live. You should too, because it’s bound to be entertaining.
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