Hey, you punk kids! Get off my lawn--I'm trying to watch Matlock! CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount have released Matlock: The Eighth Season, a six-disc, 20-episode collection of the long-running mystery series' 1993-1994 season. No big shifts in either execution or cast here for Andy Griffith's penultimate go-around as 'ol Ben Matlock...and that's no doubt what long-time fans wanted in this comfy-cozy show (we remember you, Andy, even if Hollywood and the Oscars didn't). No extras, other than episode teasers, for these (expectedly) problematic transfers.

Hot-lanta, GA. Wiley, cagey ol' defense attorney Ben Matlock (Andy Griffith) has more tricks up his sleeve than a monkey on a hundred yards of grapevine. At a fee of $100,000 a case (and risi...Read the entire review

Gunsmoke returns for the second-half of its seventh of 20 seasons, the first season in which Gunsmoke had switched from a 30-minute to 60-minute show. Watching these episodes, the benefits and occasional drawbacks of this format change become apparent. You'd think, for instance, that the already grueling schedule of 34 half-hours per season would only double the workload with Gunsmoke expanded. Instead, the longer running time is wisely seized by its writers as a means to enrich its one-off guest characterizations, typically pairing them with one of Gunsmoke's regular cast members, and which in turn often results in Marshal Matt Dillon and others sometimes making but token appearances. When it's done right, as it is here most of the time, Gunsmoke is richer than the earlier half-hours.

I've sung Gunsmoke's praises many times already, having reviewed Read the entire review

I feel the need- the need for- 3D?

Well, color me surprised. I had heard a couple years ago that Top Gun was going to be re-released in converted 3D, and I immediately thought that would be an extremely pointless endeavor. It turns out that Paramount has foregone a normal theatrical release however and just done a limited engagement in IMAX theaters. In anticipation of receiving this new 3D Blu-Ray issue, I watched my 2-dimesional HD-DVD of the movie to re-familiarize myself with it, and again questioned the point of converting it into 3D, as I didn't see anything that would really stand out. Well, after viewing the 3D Blu-Ray I can say that Legend 3D managed to pull it off rather well. It almost looks like it was actually filmed in 3D. While I am not very familiar wit...Read the entire review

At an industry screening last November I heard an attendee remark that none of the crop of Academy-ambitious Fall movies seemed to be a dog... so far they were all good. Two nominee-hopefuls took a spectacular disaster as their subject. I hope to be able to review Juan Antonio Bayona's The Impossible when it arrives on disc. It is also a pleasure to remark on Flight, a Denzel Washington vehicle that's is the best movie Robert Zemeckis has made in a long, long while. It's exciting, it's dramatic, it's unpretentious.... and it doesn't use motion capture, a technology that's proved a dead end for Zemeckis in some really trying fantasy efforts. Flight has been nominated for Best Actor for Washington and Best Screenplay for John Gatins. It had me completely absorbed...Read the entire review

It'd be easy to dismiss Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. It sat on the shelf for something close to a year, only to be discarded in the January wasteland, a time when studios are notorious for dumping write-offs into the cinematic miasma. As a concept, it comes across as a bean counter's focus group conclusion. A film Jeremy Renner made when he was just getting hot, after The Hurt Locker but before The Avengers. In other words, before Hawkeye's butt become a tumblr sensation and he could use a collection of animated .gifs as a bargaining chip.

But to succumb to such cynicism is to do yourself a disservice. Is Hansel a...Read the entire review

Court is back in session. Again. Hot on the heels of Perry Mason - Season 8, Volume 1, released barely two months back, comes Volume 2 of the long-running courtroom-mystery-thriller in its penultimate season. At the rate CBS/Paramount is cranking these out, I would expect Season 9 no later than August, quite possibly even sooner than that. (And I do hope they're also planning on some release of the 26 later Perry Mason TV movies of 1985-1993, also starring Raymond Burr and Barbara Hale, with the last one airing a few months after Burr's death.

Perry Mason - Season 8, Volume 2, includes the final 15 episodes of the 1964-65 season, with "The Case of the Telltale Tap," "The Case of the Fatal Fetish," and other cases involving Sad Sicilians, Murderous Mermaids, Careless Kittens, Wrongful Writs, and, yes, even Grinning Gorillas. (All Season 8 shows are new to DVD. None ...Read the entire review

Only two of the toons feature kah-rah-tay, so.... Nickelodeon has released SpongeBob SquarePants: Extreme Kah-Rah-Tay, the latest grab-bag of SpongeBob toons from Seasons 8 and 9. Titles included are Squid Defense, The Way of the Sponge, House Sittin' For Sandy, The Krabby Patty That Ate Bikini Bottom, Extreme Spots, Squirrel Record, Face Freeze, and Demolition Doofus. No doubt SpongeBob SquarePants: Extreme Kah-Rah-Tay is a catchy title for marketing purposes, but buyers could be forgiven for assuming they're getting a compilation here that at least includes a few more kah-rah-tay episodes (I mean...where's the single greatest SpongeBob episode of all time: Karate Island?). An amusing set of episodes (the energetic House Sittin' For Sandy is the best), these great-looking transfers come w...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
The Nerdist downloads some funny

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Stand-up comedy, Chris Hardwick
Likes: Nerd culture
Dislikes: That silver suit
Hates: Hipster culture

The Show
I've been a fan of Chris Hardwick and his wide-ranging Nerdist empire for a long time now (having been a member of the Node from its inception) so I may not be the most objective reviewer when it comes to this DVD. However, my wife does not indulge in the nerdier things in life, instead just barely putting up with my own interest in comic books, action figures and video games. However, when we sat down to watch Hardwick's first hour-long stand-up special, she was laughing as hard as I was in many places, resulting in her of...Read the entire review

Gunsmoke, the long-running television Western (20 years plus later TV movies extending it another 19 years!), underwent a big change in 1961 when, at the beginning of its seventh season, the show expanded from 30 minutes to a full hour. As noted in my review of The Sixth Season, Volume 2, there was a trend toward this kind of thing among prime-time network shows in the early 1960s, with Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and the expanded Twilight Zone, also CBS shows, being the most obvious other examples.

Those longer running times caused both shows to suffer, particularly Twilight Zone which for its stories was perfectly suited to episodes running about 25 minutes minus the commercials. Before switching back to a half-hour for its fifth and final season, 18 hour Zones were produced but of those only two could truly be considered exc...Read the entire review

Although it would seem as if the franchise has started to wind down a little, "CSI" remains one of the most successful shows that the CBS Network has produced in recent years, so it's understandable that the popular mystery/drama has spawned not one, but two spin offs - the first of which saw sun-soaked mysteries popping up near the beaches of Miami.

The show focuses on lead detective Horatio Caine (David Caruso, finally making his comeback), who solves - with his forensics crew - some of Miami's toughest cases. They go through blood stain evidence, ballistics and every other possible detail relating to the case. Helping Caine are Calleigh Dusquene (Emily Procter), recovery expert Eric Delko (Adam Rodriguez) and others.

The show often spends the hour going through one distinct, standalone crime. Although the focus often hovers around the Caruso character, the supporting players do good ...Read the entire review

So this is how it ends? Not with a bang, but with severe blunt force trauma and multiple contusions? The end for Joe Mannix is here. There will be no more seasons of Mannix coming out on DVD. Get your head around that as your tears slide down your pumpkin yellow and apple green-checked Dacron polyester sports coat. There will be...no more. Paramount has released Mannix: The Final Season (my god why did they call it that? Is it not enough to know it's the final season?), a 6-disc, 24-episode collection from the CBS detective series' 1974-1975 season―and a damned good season, it is, too, with emphasis on nicely-constructed little noir mysteries over the more emphatically Mannix-y elements. Which makes this all the more difficult. This goodbye. A new car for Joe and a big bump up in the ratings didn't m...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
From Oprah peeing to the Tron Guy

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Funny internet clips
Likes: Daniel Tosh, Tosh.0, Web Soup
Dislikes: Gross-out comedy, viewer videos
Hates: Clip-show bits

The Story So Far...
Comedy Central's biggest hit in recent years, Tosh.0 features wise-ass stand-up comic Daniel Tosh, as he presents a variety of internet videos, offering jokes about them and participating in sketches, sometimes with the star of the original video, most noticeably in the show's flagship segment, Web Redemption, where Tosh offers someone who made a poor impression in a viral video to clear the air and come out on top for once. The first home-video collection, HoodiesRead the entire review

For Christmas, e-mail your father and tell him to go see Jack Reacher. He'll thank you. It's a movie that seems perfectly designed for dads. That's not meant as an insult either. As someone who grew up around Charles Bronson and Sylvester Stallone movies, and watching cop shows and westerns with the old man, I have an appreciation for the sort of no-nonsense action yarns of yore. Jack Reacher is like The Bourne Identity in its single-minded focus on plot, but lacking the pseudo-science Black Ops mumbo jumbo.

Tom Cruise stars in the film as Reacher, a former military police officer who has been living off the grid since returning from Iraq. After an ex-sniper ...Read the entire review

In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "It's like d j vu all over again." If you're thinking to yourself, "Wait! Didn't he just review Perry Mason a few weeks ago?" you would be correct. Just three weeks ago, in fact, and for me barely ten reviews back, I reviewed Perry Mason - Season 7, Volume 2. As noted then, beginning with the release of Perry Mason - Season 7, Volume 1, CBS DVD and Paramount have apparently decided to race to the finish line with this and other classic television releases. Perry Mason - Season 8, Volume 2, is already scheduled for release next month, and though not yet announced I wouldn't be surprised to see both volumes of Season 9, the series' last, out by next spring, with possibly the later Perry Mason TV-movies after that.

Perry Mason - Season 8, Volume 1, includes the first 15 episodes of the 1964-65 season, with "The Case of the Wooden ...Read the entire review