Reviewer fired for bad review, Xbox 360 Dashboard Update, & the Wii being put up on Ebay for grand larceny? - Welcome to the column that is always honest and promises that Kane & Lynch is indeed a steaming pile known as Dare to Play the Game.

Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. Well as mentioned in the previous week, I finished Puzzle Quest and inadvertently started Carcassonne since it was offered free. To date, only Galaga has been easier for achievements. I finished the achievements on my own over the weekend. Easy 200 points, seriously.

Avast ye mates, Jack’s back, and did ye ever doubt the return of Cap’n Jack Sparrow? Johnny Depp once again transforms himself like no other actor in Hollywood can. It doesn’t hurt that he wears the persona of Jack Sparrow with the ease of a well worn favorite hat. In this case it be the unmistakable chapeau of Disney’s favorite pirate. At World’s End is the third and final entry in the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy. If and when we’ll ever see Sparrow again is anybody’s guess, but I’d lean toward the likelihood that he will return, albeit not that soon and with an almost completely new supporting cast.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix launches today on DVD and HD-DVD. The HD-DVD consortium has revealed a new feature just for the HD-DVD release. This new feature ultilizes the standard network adapter included with every HD-DVD player. The gist of the feature is you can connect to a friends HD-DVD player and both of you can can simultaneously view the latest Harry Potter film fully synced up with message functionality.

From the official site:

A friend that I work with said that if Hollywood ever ran out of creative and original ideas, and that if a studio managed to make a sequel about pirate zombies that lasted three hours long, it would clean up at the box office. But the fact of the matter is that if we survived a nuclear winter, we would be well prepared about what to do when zombies took over the land, because of the prep we had from guys like George Romero. So even though Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later might have presumably sealed the deal when it came to this particular interpretation, someone decided to dredge it up for whatever reason.

What we have here is an average film based on what I'm told is a great little bestseller, The Nanny Diaries. There's a lot of talent at work in this romantic dramedy, with stars like Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), Laura Linney (Kinsey) and Paul Giamatti (Sideways), and the directing talents of husband-and-wife team Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (American Splendor), so I expected more.

But are there any disappointments lurking on this widescreen DVD? Read on to find out.

Who says horror can’t be the cinema of personal expression? Director Tim Sullivan follows up his comic horror 2001 Maniacs with this heartfelt ghost story. Raviv Ullman plays David, a teenager whose depression and death-fixation following the demise of his older brother prompts his desperate parents to ship him off to an “Attitude Adjustment Camp.” Basically a brutal cross between boot camp and prison, this is a private institution (inspired by actual places) designed to transform any insipient Columbine-copycats. Once there, David must contend not only with the sadistic Captain Kennedy (Diamond Dallas Page) who runs the place, but also with visions of a ghost who clearly wants a buried truth revealed.

The wonderful thing about cult film fandom is the peculiar obsessions that typify it. I’m thinking specifically here of the enthusiastic loyalty fans have for a given director or performer, whatever said person’s standing in the mainstream film community might be (and very often in defiance of such). Hence, for instance, the following that Joe D’Amato commands. As for performers, let’s think for a moment about character actors. I’ve already documented my great fondness for Michael Ripper, he of the bulging eyes and multiple bit parts in Hammer films. Well, I have in my hands a delightful little tome that does me one better.

I love some Adult Swim. There are some real standouts shown that have fun plots, edgy animation, and a whole lot of outlandish humor. Venture Bros, Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen Hunger Force immediately come to mind. Heck, I've even gave smaller shows like The Boondocks and Metalocalypse a try and liked them on some level. So needless to say, I was interested when I received Squidbillies Volume 1. Twenty episodes staring a Georgia-based hick squid family. How bad could it be?

This toy projector is being sold at Target for $169.99. Now that is a very tempting price for a projector but let it be known that is a gadget that should be feared not curiously picked up for your kids. Gizmodo did a write up and it suffers from an amazingly dim picture, almost zero contrast ratio and a screendoor effect that looks like your looking at the video through a yarn knitted comforter. For $169.99 your better off buying a awesome game like Rock Band.

Have you ever watched a recent Robin Williams film and yearned for the days when the actor wasn’t so full of himself and stealing every scene he was in? Well, you’re out of luck, because there was never such a time for Williams; however, you can journey to a time when at least he was hungry and wasn’t so over the top. OK. Even in the days of Mork and Mindy Williams was never capable of reining himself in. Still, I thought I would look back on these episodes with that warm nostalgic feeling I tend to get and just remember the good times.