I was expecting a comedy from beginning to end but Hancock is really two movies mashed together: a comedy in the first half (Superman is an asshole) and an action drama in the second half. It starts out as pretty funny superhero satire. But it’s like they ran out of steam and after Hancock is [...]

Immediately goes for the jugular of awkward social interaction and then combines that with the awkwardness of senseless and accidental homicide. My favorite scenes were between the CIA Supervisor played by J. K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson in Spiderman) and the CIA Officer played by David Rasch (Senator, Flags of Our Fathers) as they comically [...]

I really enjoyed this one. Benjamin Button is a long, quiet film. Narrated in the first person, it tells the extraordinary epic of a boy named Benjamin who was born old and grows younger as he ages. While focusing on the important people in his life, Benjamin’s story reveals that his strange blend of experience [...]

Day 3 of the Clean Living Room Experiment is well under way. Our children are spending their last precious days of Summer vacation with their aunt at the beach. She has them for a week and, yes, we’ve already sent in her application for sainthood. I thoroughly cleaned our living room the morning after they [...]

Intense. A modern take on historical drama, The Tudors season one brings us the court of King Henry VIII (Queen Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, “burn them at the stake,” all that jazz). Performances are outstanding all around, sets and costumes are lavish and convincing. The Tudors is intelligent, exciting, visceral, sexy—if not totally historically accurate. More [...]

BSG is a great show—superb even—and awful. So if you’re watching it for the first time on DVD here is what I suggest: watch the first two seasons in their entirety. They’re great. In season three, watch through episode 42: Exodus Part 2. Then stop. Make up your own ending. Go rent something else. I [...]

Ha ha. Well, not exactly. Then again… well, you decide: (click to enlarge) The letter reads: Dear John, Happy Father’s Day! Just when you thought you couldn’t get a worse Father’s day tie… TiVo has raised the bar. Don’t worry, it is not a total bust; we’ve also included a Rhapsody card, good for three [...]

In the United States, copying a DVD can get you up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. At least, that’s what all of my legally rented Netflix DVDs tell me every single time I watch them. For fun, I thought I’d see if that punishment was reasonable by surveying the California penal [...]

According to their website, Hip Hop Harry has been nominated for the 34th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards for “Outstanding Preschool Children’s Series.” The phrase “crimes against humanity” springs to mind almost instantly.

I’m a fan of Battlestar Galactica. (In case you haven’t watched it, they say it’s one of the best shows on television. But don’t let that non-endorsement stop you—it really is good. You can rent the first couple seasons.) The show has continued to stay strong through 2.5 seasons, but a recent multi-epsiode love-square story [...]