Whit Stillman is still Whit Stillman after all these years. The godfather of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Like the Terence Malick of college-aged dramedies.

Thirteen years after The Last Days of Disco, which seemingly ended a storytelling cycle about ushering the disaffected and privileged out of the illusions of early adulthood, writer/director Stillman has returned with a sweet, urbane comedy about university life. Damsels in Distress is an imperfect, episodic film that manages to garner a lot of laughs and even some genuine sentiment. At times, it almost seems to be a parody of itself, preserving Stillman's ideal world in a hermetic bubble; at other times, it is magical in ...Read the entire review

Robert Duvall has been playing spirited old men for more than twenty years, and now pushing eighty, Duvall has found what might be the best of these roles in Felix Bush, the protagonist of Aaron Schneider's directorial debut, Get Low. Throughout his varied career as an actor and filmmaker, Duvall has established himself as a prolific, professional, committed, and always compelling presence, performing in a strong mixture of big-budget Hollywood movies and tiny independent films - although his contributions to smaller films usually guarantee an automatic enlargement of sorts. Whatever the project's scale, Duvall can be depended upon to provide some combination of down-to-earth sincerity, genuine heart, and, occasionally, an unpredictable ferocity. Get Low is a...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Welcome to the Rileys is a drama with good intentions, but like the generation gap it portrays, it is thrown off balance by the chasm of experience. It stars James Gandolfini and Melissa Leo as a couple who have been married for nearly three decades. Eight years ago, their teenage daughter was killed in a car accident, and things haven't been right since. For one thing, the mother, Lois Riley, hasn't left her house in all that time. Looking for distraction, her husband, Doug, is a successful businessman who thinks nothing of losing a thousand dollars in a poker game. For the last four years, he's chased the cards with waffles, and he has been having an affair with the waitress (Eisa Davis) at his regular diner.

Doug begins to lose his grip on things when his mistress dies unexpectedly just before they are supposed to go on a trip to New Orleans. He has a convention...Read the entire review

Wait, what was it again that Godard said? That all you need for a movie is a girl and a gun? As you could probably guess by the title in big, bold letters up there, that's where director Zhang Yimou (Hero; Raise the Red Lantern) starts, at least. Those

Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=44767 Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:18:05 PDT Highly Recommended Sometimes, good things come in threes; on other occasions, the third time is the charm. The latter is certainly true in the case of Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, a strikingly good film by Jan Kounen. It follows the lifeless made-for-TV Coco Chanel, and the stuffy Coco Before Chanelwith Audrey Tautou. Unlike those two films, this one takes an artistic plunge, unafraid to engage in intuitive, free-flowing artistic interpretation, in what is ultimately a cinematic fictionalization of a hazy period i...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=45624 Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:26:42 PDT Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Benjam n Esposito (Ricardo Dar n) is a recently retired public prosecutor in Argentina. Now living alone and with a lot of time on his hands, he begins to write a novel, one that studies the two passions of his life: his romantic love for his former boss, Irene (Soledad Villamil), and a 20-year-old murder case that still eats at him. "Passion" is a word that comes up a lot, as it is the driving force for everything the characters do in The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos), the Oscar-winning thriller from writer/editor/director Juan Jos Campanella. Passion is why one character drinks himself into a stupor every night, and why another rapes and kills a woman. It's the central element that defines each of us, the thing we can't...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=43168 Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:39:06 PDT Recommended The Movie: When people say that Michael Cera has been essentially replicating his work that made him famous in the much-beloved Arrested Development from a couple of years ago, I can see what they're saying. He's certainly got the awkward teen male thing down pat and will probably continue to ride that gravy train until its wheels fall off. I can't blame him for that, but when given slightly different subject material, I think that Cera's traits tend to take things to an improvedevel, such as in the case of Youth in Revolt. Gustin Nash (Charlie Bartlett) adapted the C.D. Payne novel into a screenplay that Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl) directed. Cera plays Nick Twis...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=43462 Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:18:17 PDT Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: It's amazing how much resonance a teen movie can have. It doesn't matter how far away you get from high school, you can still watch a movie about a 16-year-old kid and say, "Man, that's just like what happened to me." It's how I felt watching Youth in Revolt. The adolescent experience is universal and self-replicating. Youth in Revolt stars Michael Cera as Nick Twisp, a guy who has an unfortunate name and knows it (and will tell you so). Nick is an imaginative but awkward young man who listens to Frank Sinatra, dreams about girls, and plans to write novels one day. His mom (Jean Smart) is a barely there parent who dates a loser (Zach Galifianakis) because he doesn't mind her stretch marks, and his dad (Steve Buscemi) seems nice enough, tho...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=42751 Fri, 21 May 2010 04:26:05 PDT Highly Recommended The Film: Getting acclimated to Cormac McCarthy's language in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Road" can be tough as he weaves through lengthy comma-free sentences and dialogue without quotations, but the raw clarity in which he paints his post-apocalyptic environment leaves very little to the imagination. He lightly scatters pensive ideas into his book, critiques on humanity's dog-eat-dog nature and the like, yet the real point in reading it comes in the nail-biting, breathless experience generated by a father and son trekking through gritty desolation. That roughness likely pulled The Proposition director John Hillcoat to the helm of this film adaptation like a magnet, a fitting match for the material due to his affinity with stark atmos...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=42927 Thu, 06 May 2010 13:21:15 PDT Recommended The Movies: Although Sony has made both The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid II available on standard definition previously, with the upcoming remake (starring Jackie Chan? Huh?? It's karate, not kung-fu!) on the horizon, both films are now making their high definition debut. You can pick them up on their own, as they are available separately, or as part of this handy-dandy well priced double feature set. The Karate Kid: Director John G. Avildsen 's The Karate Kid was a very big deal to any kid living through the eighties. Everyone had to see it, some of us more than once, and while it was busting down box office doors around the continent, it wasn't uncommon to see kids standing on logs trying to balance like a bird sporting headbands. It was that kind of movie - not only a rousing financial success but a film that almost instantly carved out its own ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=42564 Tue, 04 May 2010 04:40:23 PDT Highly Recommended THE FILM "The Karate Kid" holds a special spot in the prestigious summer movie Class of 1984. It was the sleeper sensation, free of Gremlins, Ghostbusters, and resistant to the Black Sleep of Kali, becoming a box office bear using a tried and true Hollywood tool that isn't employed much these days: patient characterization. Perhaps a touch on the corny side and undeniably broad, "The Karate Kid" is a ridiculously rewarding drama that puts pure sincerity to marvelous use, inflating a mild underdog story into an inspiring tale of education and developing friendship. Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) is having a difficult time adjusting to life in California after a cross-country relocation from New Jersey with his mother (Randee Heller). Discovering comfort in flirtations with classmate Ali (a wonderfully virginal Elisabeth Shue), Daniel finds his East Coast brashness and ge...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=42319 Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:52:33 PDT Recommended THE MOVIE: Terry Gilliam has taken his lumps for not being very Terry Gilliam over the last several years. The man with the indomitable laugh just didn't seem to be firing on all creative cylinders. 2005's The Brothers Grimm felt either like a rough draft or, worse, someone else's cynical attempt to be Terry Gilliam, like a studio exec said, "Give me something like that that isn't that." His follow-up, released that same year, was the execrable Tideland. It came from an ugly place, and Gilliam's bitter defense of it didn't help. By Gilliam's own admission, his latest, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=42423 Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:15:31 PDT Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: He's a smooth operator, this David. He's 30 years old, and Jenny is 16, but when he can pull it off, because he's charmed her parents as thoroughly as he's charmed their daughter; he doesn't stop at the "you didn't tell me you had a sister" line when he meets her mother, but he brings over good wine and regales them with stories of his worldliness and sophistication, and makes dating a woman half his age seem like its perfectly natural and downright urbane. What's more, he makes his own savoir-faire seem a shared commodity--he takes them in, and makes them part of his world. But then, that's how he gets Jenny, too. An Education is the story of their romance, and of how Jenny comes out of it stronger and, for better or worse, wiser. It is based on a memoir by British writer Lynn Barber, remembering her teen years in Twickenham, London in the early 1960s; the screenp...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=42535 Sun, 21 Mar 2010 07:34:42 PDT Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: The new movie An Education is like the cinematic equivalent of a bad boyfriend--and I mean that in the best way possible. Based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, it's actually a film about a bad boyfriend, and director Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself) uses the pick-up technique of just such a scoundrel, seducing us into an exhilarating crush at the start, breaking our hearts by film's end. More important than An Education being about this rotten boy, this is also a film about Jenny, the girl upon whose behalf our heart brea...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=37604 Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:39:35 PDT Highly Recommended Reviewed by Glenn Erickson On his commentary for Waltz with Bashir, Writer-producer-director Ari Folman laughs when he remembers seeing the credits for Pixar's Finding Nemo, where forty people worked just on the digital lighting schemes. For Bashir, the entire art and animation crew was eight. Waltz with Bashir is a remarkable, beautiful animated film. It's pigeonholed in the contradictory-sounding category of "animated documentary" but like any docu is an artistic examination of a factual subject, a subjective essay. Folman's subject is his own experience as an Israeli soldier in the First Lebanon War in the early 1980s, and that of others he knew and some he did not. The personal investigation becomes a survey how war is experienced by its combatants, and also the nature of selective memory and responsibility. Folman realized t...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=31884 Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:51:45 PST Rent It The Product: Is it possible to find the masterminds behind CGI - and specifically, the realistic dinos as danger circa Jurassic Park - and beat the ever lovin' snot out of them? While the subpar Sci-Fi Channel monsterfests are only partially their fault (Charles Band and his fellow schlock meisters also bear some of that burden), big screen spectacles like D-War (or Dragon Wars) definitely owe them a big fat kick in the keister. Without the motherboards ability to render quasi-realistic creatures, a movie like this lame South Korean beast battle wouldn't be possible. Apparently, thanks to technology, any vision - no matter how pointless or uninvolving - can make the leap into rendered reality. And just as George Lucas and his miserable Star Wars prequels proved, no amount of illogical animated eye candy can make up for drop dead dreadful acting. And if Dragon W...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=31295 Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:29:50 PST Highly Recommended The Movie: "For those about to rock, we salute you!" AC/DC is one of the most popular and successful hard rock/heavy metal bands in the entire world. Their towering achievement, 1980's Back In Black, is the second best selling album in the world at over 42 million copies. While their follow-up recording, For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) topped the charts in America, AC/DC's career quickly began to slip shortly afterwards. They went from chart toppers in 1981 to almost forgotten by the end of the decade. While they had a few memorable moments in between, such as the Who Made Who collection (a soundtrack to the utterly forgettable Stephen King schlock fest Maximum Overdrive), as the 90's dawned, the band seemed thoroughly irrelevant. Clearly the group's dwindling impact was not lost on Angus and Malcolm Young, the band's guitarists and songwr...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=28918 Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:20:25 PDT Recommended The Concert: I'm not a huge jazz fan, and even less of a fan of "light" jazz. People like Kenny G and Dave Koz put me to sleep, so it was with extremetrepidation that I popped in Chris Botti: Live.  Not reallyfamiliar with his music, but having heard his name, I was expecting somelame elevator music.  Much to my surprise the disc consists of a firstrate musician playing some classic tunes that are sure to please. The Blu-ray disc looked good and sounded fantastic too.  Long timefans and newcomers like me are sure to enjoy this fun concert. ChrisBotti is a trumpet player who has an impeccable pedigree.  After attaininga degree from the Indiana University music program, B...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=28757 Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:54:03 PDT Rent It I'm going to go ahead and get this out of the way right now: I hate Bruce Springsteen. I have hated him for years. Every so often he'll write a good song or two, and I absolutely adore David Bowie's cover of "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City," but as for the man himself (I refuse to use the term, "The Boss" as I also cannot stand that), well, he just doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's his "I'm just a normal joe like anyone else with my blue jeans and checkered shirt" image, which is as fake as any stage persona, or his scratchy attempt at a lived-in voice, but I just cannot stand hearing the guy sing his own songs. And then you throw in his insipid "rock anthems" like "Born In The USA," which are simplistic to the point of actively draining the intelligence of the listener, and you don't get a pretty package. However, I'm not the only person in the world, and many of the other people co-habitating t...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=26860 Sun, 04 Mar 2007 15:37:48 PST Highly Recommended God will get you for that, Walter. You have to hand it to Norman Lear. The creator of the most famous right-wing bigot in American pop culture, Archie Bunker in All in the Family, didn't rest on his laurels and stay safe by stamping out a carbon copy spin-off when the overwhelming success of All in the Family demanded a follow-up. No, he proceeded to create a character just as memorable as Archie, an upper-middle class, 47-year-old, four-times married housewife named Maude Findlay from the tony village of Tuckahoe, New York, and in the process, skewered just about every liberal pretension swimming around out there in 1972 America. Now that took guts on Lear's part. The artistic crowd in Hollywood aren't known for poking fun at themselves, particularly when it comes to their beloved politics (which then, as now, were overwhelmingly liberal). Maude could easily ha...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=25685 Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:18:25 PST Recommended In 10 Words or Less Do you hear what I smell? Reviewer's Bias* Loves: When my kid is captivated Likes: Good kids TV Dislikes: Most PBS kids shows Hates: Stupid kids TV The Show Kids DVDs can generally be divided into two types: those you watch and those you use. The "watch" group has its value, as sometimes it doesn't hurt to sit your little one down to zone out with the adventures of "The Wonder Pets." But it's better when the disc works as a guide for you to enjoy with your youngin'. "Sesame Beginnings: Exploring Together" is definitely in that category, as it uses kids' "Sesame Street" pals as an in to talk about the five senses. The Sesame Kids, much like the Muppet Babies before them, are infant versions of t...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=25272 Sun, 26 Nov 2006 10:22:42 PST Recommended The Movie: My son is six, so I approached this disc with trepidation, fearing we'd both outgrown Sesame Street. His Elmo days have long been over, ever since he discovered the Power Rangers and never looked back. Having viewed and loved A Muppet Christmas Carol for several years now each holiday season, we gave A Sesame Street Christmas Carol a try, and were we glad we did! This 45-minute DVD is a delight from start to finish. The most important feature of this disc, which bears mentioning right up front, is that MR. HOOPER IS ON THIS ONE!!! For those of you who grew up watching the kindly, bespectacled store owner, played by the charismatic Will Lee, who died in the early 1980s, that is reason enough to invest in this disc. Sesame Street was commended for its handling of Mr. Hooper's death and the show's unavoidable transition in its aftermath, and t...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=25260 Sat, 25 Nov 2006 21:53:17 PST Recommended Reviewed by Glenn Erickson After his unsung comeback in Godzilla Raids Again, Toho's Big G lay dormant for seven years while the studios concentrated on alien invasions, a giant pterodactyl and various men that could turn to mist or be dissolved into atomic slime. Then, following a tonal direction toward younger audiences with the highly imaginative Mothra, Godzilla returned in a tremendous color and Tohoscope hit King Kong vs. Godzilla. Universal picked it up for American release in 1962. Before the Godzilla series devolved into overtly childish monster rallies introducing fanciful guest beasts for the aquatic dragon to battle, the studio released one more relatively 'naturalistic' fantasy. Mothra vs. Godzilla b...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=25203 Tue, 21 Nov 2006 18:27:04 PST Highly Recommended The Product: Complete is not a complicated word. Something is either all inclusive, or it's not. Unfortunately, in the realm of DVD, definitions grow a little muddy and/or complicated. Entire seasons of seminal TV shows will be released without requisite music cues, and films like Fantasia, supposedly provided in their full theatrical form, are tweaked to remove material that would offend our modern PC-oriented audiences. So when Sony announces, in no uncertain terms, a "complete" collection of HarveyToons, the mind races. What exactly, in this studio's mind, equals comprehensive? Each and every example of Harvey's output from 1940 to 1990, unedited and complete with their full title screens and songs? The answer, sadly, is no. Similar to the approach taken by Paramount when they recently released their "uncut" Ren and Stimpy sets, what we have here are truncated offerings, missing th...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=24431 Mon, 16 Oct 2006 11:45:22 PDT Skip It Huzzah! Finally, a cartoon to offend everyone! The Dick Tracy Show: The Complete Animated Series is one of the worst examples of vintage animation I've seen in some time. I vaguely remember snippets of the show when I was a kid, but in no way did it stick with me in a meaningful way - and now I know why. Running four and a half minutes each, these Dick Tracy cartoons truly are offensive, and not just for the obvious reasons, such as ethnic characters named GoGo Gomez and Joe Jitsu. United Productions of America, or UPA Studios, has long held a cult status with animation buffs because of its innovative "limited animation" style that revolutionized the industry back in the 1950s. Reducing the number of "inbetweens" drawings between the keyframes (th...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=23738 Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:38:15 PDT Recommended I'm a little surprised that it took five decades for Gerald McBoing Boing to come back to us. The character, who cannot talk but instead communicates by sound effects, was created in 1950 by Dr. Seuss for a whimsical cartoon short that went on to win an Oscar. Three follow-up cartoons were made (including a final effort that experimented with the widescreen process), which then led to "The Gerald McBoing Boing Show," a series that featured not only Gerald but a handful of other UPA properties, such as Mr. Magoo, as well. That show lasted one season, Gerald would appear in two early-60s Magoo TV specials, and then nothing. In fact, for decades, the original Gerald cartoons were hard to find; only lately, with a DVD compilation (as well as an appearance in the special features corner of the "Hellboy" DVD), had the films become widely available again. Which is odd - Gerald is as delightful a chara...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=23739 Sun, 10 Sep 2006 18:38:15 PDT Recommended I'm a little surprised that it took five decades for Gerald McBoing Boing to come back to us. The character, who cannot talk but instead communicates by sound effects, was created in 1950 by Dr. Seuss for a whimsical cartoon short that went on to win an Oscar. Three follow-up cartoons were made (including a final effort that experimented with the widescreen process), which then led to "The Gerald McBoing Boing Show," a series that featured not only Gerald but a handful of other UPA properties, such as Mr. Magoo, as well. That show lasted one season, Gerald would appear in two early-60s Magoo TV specials, and then nothing. In fact, for decades, the original Gerald cartoons were hard to find; only lately, with a DVD compilation (as well as an appearance in the special features corner of the "Hellboy" DVD), had the films become widely available again. Which is odd - Gerald is as delightful a chara...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=21225 Tue, 18 Apr 2006 14:10:06 PDT Recommended The Movie: Released on VHS way back when as Judas Priest Live! and previously available on DVD exclusively in the Judas Priest Metalogy boxed set, 1982's Judas Priest Live Vengeance '82 is a fantastic full length performance from Priest in their prime. While the die hard fans will no doubt already have the disc, for those of us who didn't pick up the boxed set, this is a key piece of any Judas Priest fans collection and a great time capsule of the metal scene that the early eighties gave us. What's amazing, when listening to this show, is just how much Priest hasn't changed in the last few decades. Sure, Halford left the band for a while and before he did they recorded Painkiller, an insanely heavy record by Judas Priest standards, but when they reformed and put out Angel Of Retribution it was almost like nothing had changed and that ...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=19578 Thu, 05 Jan 2006 12:50:56 PST Recommended Though their international success began only two years ago, Scotland's Franz Ferdinand has already established a reputation for their catchy, kinetic brand of rock. Named after the infamous Archduke whose murder helped start the first World War, the four-piece began back in 2001 the same way most bands do: as friends, old and new, with a common interest in music. Art was another driving force behind their mission statement, though; in fact, the earliest Franz Ferdinand shows incorporated both mediums at rave-like performances held in an abandoned Glasgow warehouse nicknamed "The Chateau". During the next two years, Franz Ferdinand's first official collection of recordings---the Darts of Pleasure EP---was released through Domino, while gradual word-of-mouth helped their self-titled debut LP become...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=19545 Mon, 02 Jan 2006 18:37:22 PST Recommended Movie: Back in 1981, ballad rock ruled the airwaves of top twenty FM radio where the slightest hook often meant the difference between becoming a superstar and a wannabe for a plethora of bands all seeking to latch onto the conflicting styles of music as disco was absorbed into the synth-pop New Wave movement, Heavy Metal spawned a whole new generation of headbangers, and MTV had arrived to become the kingmaker of the music world previously reserved for DJ's and music industry executives. Stars like Pat Benatar, bands like ZZ Top and New Order, and even sex kitten bands like Berlin, were making their mark thanks in large part to the cable channel network. Anothe...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=17848 Sat, 24 Sep 2005 08:58:07 PDT Skip It The Movie The funniest thing about Monster High is the promo blurb that's plastered on front of the DVD case: "From the producers who brought you Return of the Swamp Thing." It's funny mainly because somebody out there must think that such a connection would act as a selling point for the Monster High DVD ... but also because they got the title wrong. It's The Return of Swamp Thing. But why stop there? When you're trying to unload late-80s garbage-cinema of the goofiest degree, you need to trumpet those credits as loud as possible! Why not include blurbs like "From the editor of Angel III: The Final Chapter!" or "From the costume designer of Puppet Master!"? Anyway, of the two producers in question, Annette Cirillo hasn't worked on a film in 15 years, and Tom Kuhn has gone on to grace the universe with stuff like Amazons and Gladiators and ...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=15645 Tue, 03 May 2005 20:39:39 PDT Highly Recommended As a longtime Star Wars geek and ardent fan of legendary composer John Williams, I was already planning to purchase the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack CD. But when I learned that the CD would come packaged with a 70-minute DVD ... well, I just considered that some well-deserved icing on the fanboy cake. A Musical Journey is comprised of 16 separate chapters, each of which are accessible individually or through a Play All feature. All of the chapters are preceded by an introduction by Ian McDiarmid (Palpatine himself!), although you can also switch the intros off should you just want a solid hour of Star Wars musical goodness. The tracks are, with one exception, presented in a chronological order, which means that we start with music from The Phantom Menace and move forward from there. The visual accompaniment to Williams' various cues is, more often than not, movie ...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=14807 Tue, 08 Mar 2005 16:43:02 PST Recommended "ta boo - Excluded or forbidden from use, approach, or mention" Vince has never been one to miss the pulse of pop culture and current events.Be it the controversy of the Desperate Housewives/NFL promo, to thediscrimination other nationalities might be experiencing [the French andIraqis]. For this pay-per-view, he decided to make the fans a part of the showby allowing them to control certain aspects of each match during "TabooTuesday". What's"taboo" about it? Beats me. Fans who went to WWE.com were given options such as "What should theDivas wear during the Battle Royal?" to "What weapon should Kane andSnitsky use to beat each other senseless?". Being of a conspiratorial mind,I truly believe that most, if not all, of the ma...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=14504 Wed, 16 Feb 2005 21:49:58 PST Recommended Part musical documentary and part concert film, director Antoine Fuqua's Lightning in a Bottle (2003) is an interesting glimpse at the history of blues music. Legendary performers such as Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker helped cement the genre's status in the public eye, but it really began much earlier. Originating in part as communication between plantation workers and peddlers, the blues developed from the African-American experience in America---particularly after slavery was Constitutionally abolished in 1865. The first known recording was made in 1895 (George Johnson's "Laughing Song"), eventually leading to a popular explosion by the early 1920s. African-American talent was sought after nationwide, bringing in new names like Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith and Clara Smith (seen below in a vint...Read the entire review ]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=14428 Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:47:04 PST Recommended Despite having performed worldwide for nearly 25 years now, One Earth Tour Special was the first I'd ever heard from Kodo, a Japanese taiko group. For those unfamiliar with the term, taiko (roughly translated as "big drum") is a theatrical style of music largely based around percussion and chanting. The group's name has a double meaning---"heartbeat" and "children of the drum"---emphasizing their desire to play with the heart of a child. Their visual flair, stage presence and precision timing make Kodo's performance style a truly unique art form in itself. In all, Kodo has released roughly a dozen albums and several home video performances since forming in 1981. Their live shows have been enjoyed by audiences on every habitable continent, making them the most renowned name in taiko musi...Read the entire review ]]>