I’ve said in the past and still believe that Josh Hutcherson will be a pretty good adult actor if he chooses to go down that path. I liked his work in Little Manhattan and recently finished watching him in Bridge to Terabithia, but then he comes back and makes films like Firehouse Dog, which seem to flush away a lot of that goodwill in my opinion. He doesn’t try at all and becomes the typical sweet kid, rather than the intellectual who acts larger than his shoes.

(Supplemental material portions of this review are culled from Gino Sassani's review of said film in the Blu-ray format, so enjoy or read elsewhere.)

I've always enjoyed Hitchcock's Rear Window, and I've gotta say I was more than a little disgusted when I saw that it was going to be remade and modernized, with no less than Shia fricken' LaBeouf in the main role. Oddly enough, LaBeouf carries the role pretty well.

(You’re going to have to forgive me, I’m pulling ample portions of this review from my earlier Divimax review of Dawn, with some exceptions of course.)

Anchor Bay, holding all (or most) of the keys in George Romero’s zombie film trilogy put out a copy of this film now before overloading us we on the remake, done in grainy, handheld 28 Days Later style by director Zack Snyder of 300 lore. A stopgap one disc version was released, followed by this huge-arse four disc version that we’re viewing now.

In hellish vision of a near future (?) LA, Marty Malt (Judd Nelson) is an incompetent garbage man who moonlights as an even worse comedian (his jokes aren’t funny, and he is half-crippled by stage fright). His only friend is the manipulative Gus (Bill Paxton). When Marty starts to grow a third arm out of his back, he loses his girlfriend (Lara Flynn Boyle) but attracts the attention of sleazy showbiz types Wayne Newton and Rob Lowe.

Wow - finally! My favorite movie of the summer will come out to play on DVD and HD DVD on October 16th. Both formats are OK initial releases, but leave plenty of room for future extended/director's/collector's editions - the DVD audio is particularly weak. Anyway, both releases have a slew of features - from chest-thumping Chevrolet goofiness to what sounds like a cool CGI-model explorer that takes up an entire HD DVD disc.

For now, there's going to be 2 releases. Each is two discs, but the features and extras aren't remotely similar:

  1. DVD "Special Edition" - 2 discs
    16:9, DD 5.1 Audio. 5.1 - is that it? Yup.
    Disc One: Feature, with Michael Bay commentary track
    Disc Two: A zillion featurettes/documentaries - see below for full details
  2. Transformers HD DVD - 2 discs
    1080p, DD+ 5.1
    Disc One: Feature, "Head's Up Display" (see below), web-enabled features
    Disc Two: Transformers Tech Inspector - seems to be an interactive production model browser

Final word? There's no way I'm not getting the DVD release. Its strong out of the gates, but I'm anticipating a future follow-up purchase with better-rounded audio.

The complete details from the Press Release follow after the jump... and there's more info to come over time!

Wow - finally! My favorite movie of the summer will come out to play on DVD and HD DVD on October 16th. Both formats are OK initial releases, but leave plenty of room for future extended/director's/collector's editions - the DVD audio is particularly weak. Anyway, both releases have a slew of features - from chest-thumping Chevrolet goofiness to what sounds like a cool CGI-model explorer that takes up an entire HD DVD disc.

For now, there's going to be 2 releases. Each is two discs, but the features and extras aren't remotely similar:

  1. DVD "Special Edition" - 2 discs
    16:9, DD 5.1 Audio. 5.1 - is that it? Yup.
    Disc One: Feature, with Michael Bay commentary track
    Disc Two: A zillion featurettes/documentaries - see below for full details
  2. Transformers HD DVD - 2 discs
    1080p, DD+ 5.1
    Disc One: Feature, "Head's Up Display" (see below), web-enabled features
    Disc Two: Transformers Tech Inspector - seems to be an interactive production model browser

Final word? There's no way I'm not getting the DVD release. Its strong out of the gates, but I'm anticipating a future follow-up purchase with better-rounded audio.

The complete details from the Press Release follow after the jump... and there's more info to come over time!

PS3 might go even cheaper, Fatal Fury Special at mad prices and Command & Conquer free beeotches - Welcome to the column that slashes prices and then sends you a bill every seven days known as Dare to Play the Game.

Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. Called the 360 repair people; talked to them for roughly half an hour over the signature jazz. They basically told me they can't do anything right now. Ummm, okay. I even got to speak to a very nice female manager who I tried to wow with my seductive ways. That didn't work too well; not that she was mean but she wasn't willing to bend over backwards anyway. Which is a nice trick when you can get the girl to..errr nevermind. So I'm still stuck playing the PS2; at least I'm finally playing a decent wrestling title again (Smackdown vs Raw 2006). It's been forever since I played it, and for some reason Chris Benoit was still the US Champion. *fwap* Changed that in a hurry as Finley obliterated him in a Last Man Standing Match. No, I'm not bitter.

Good question, posed by author Iain Levison.

Citing a number of insane trucker movies (Joyride, Thelma & Louise, and Duel among others), Levison turn the stereotype into a quasi-screed white-working-guy manifesto:

There is a theme here, and it doesn’t look good for white, working class males. In fact, I can’t think of a single movie that features a positive white working class male character. They’re either slimy, like the painters in 2002’s The Good Girl, downright hateful to women (North Country, Dwight Yoakam in Sling Blade) or full blown psychopaths, as in most of the films listed above. [from Iain Levison]

Huh. I'm not so sure about that. For every psycho trucker, there's 10 heroic white cops (as working a man as they come) pursuing gangsters of varying ethnicities.

It seems to me that it was around this time last year that I was lambasting the desperately misconceived remake of The Wicker Man. Here we are again, then, with another entry in the disastrous remake sweepstakes. Halloween may be a little more mainstream than is, strictly speaking, the concern of this space, but when has that ever bothered me before? While Rob Zombie’s atrocity is in the theatres, I feel it is my solemn duty to warn you off.

Sometimes when you sit down to review a dvd, you are treated to a fantasy. However, sometimes that fantasy isn't all it seems and leaves you with a blank expression and curious feelings of being unfulfilled (kinda like that marriage I had). Anyhow, I took the dubious task of reviewing Lesbian Sex & Sexuality, a television show that is on the here! network who also bring you such fine shows such as Dante's Cove. (okay; so I gave Season 2 a 2 out of 5, who's counting?) The show is very simple and has a very provocative premise. That premise is to take a mostly uncensored (I'll explain later) look at the secret and rarely explained world of lesbian sex. All kinds of subjects would be explored from fantasies to erotic dancers to the ever popular porn films. No stone and no position would be left untouched. No girl either. Men, well...anyhow the show is broken down into six half-hour episodes across two discs.