30 Days of Night - Buy from Amazon
The first of a few late screeners this week. The movie actually came out at the end of last month, but the DVD just arrived late last week.

(Note: While the movie also came out on Blu-ray, I do not have that screener and will not be reviewing it.)

Josh Hartnet stars as sheriff Eben, who helps protect Barrows, Alaska, the northernmost town in the United States. Barrows is so far north that every winter the sun sets and doesn't return for 30 days. On the day of the final sunset, a stranger comes to town, destroys all of the satellite and cell phones and then kills all of the dogs. When he is arrested, he warns of a threat that is about to descend upon the town and kill them all.

The film earned mixed reviews. In fact, it earned almost exactly 50% positive. This sums up my opinion of the movie pretty well, as I found that for every aspect that worked, there was something that didn't. Good news, the story is strong, the movie is visually striking (especially considering the film was so dark most of the time), and the mood is strong. Bad news, the acting is a little suspect at times, or maybe it’s the less than inspired dialogue that caused that. Also, I had a real issue with the climatic fight between Eben and Marlow. The final fight should have been the best action scene of the movie, but it just didn't have enough energy to be exciting enough. And that final punch came so fast and looked so fake that it ruined the ending for me.

As for the extras, things start off with an audio commentary track featuring actors Josh Hartnet and Melissa George, as well as producer Rob Tapert. There's good information here, enough energy, and very few dead spots. Worth listening to. Next up is the 8-part, 50-minute making-of featurette that provides a whole lot of information that starts at pre-production 8 weeks before shooting started. It continues onto the construction of the massive sets, the look of the movie, the stunts, the gore, etc. Finally, there's a bonus episode of Blood+, a vampire Anime, which has no direct connection to 30 Days of Night, at least none I could decipher.

Overall, 30 Days of Night works enough to be worth checking out, but is also flawed enough most fans of the genre won't need to see it several times. The DVD is worth a rental, but unless you are a hardcore vampire fanatic, that will be enough.

Baby Einsteins - Baby's First Sounds - Buy from Amazon
Watching this brought up a lot of questions. Mainly, whatever happened to singing songs to your baby?

Baby Einsteins - Baby's First Sounds is the latest in a long line of products that are designed to help early childhood development. There seem to be a lot of parents who swear by these products, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence to back up the claims made. You can read more about these issues on Wikipedia. As for this DVD, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of bang for your buck. The main program runs just over 33 minutes and the only real extra is 13 minutes long. Neither of these two programs seem interactive enough to encourage parents to play with their kids and at times felt like a 30-minute babysitter, which is certainly not a benefit at 6 months of age, or six years, or at any time.

There are plenty of parents who love the Baby Einstein line and I'm not likely to change their minds. I will admit that it is brightly colored and the music and action should draw the attention of kids; however, I don't think that's a particularly good thing. Additionally, the cost here it too high for the short running time. Save the money and just sing nursery rhymes to your kids instead. Interactive ones like Pat-a-Cake are especially fun.

Dan in Real Life - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray
Dan in Real Life opened in October to decent reviews, earned a respectable opening weekend box office, and finished its run with close to $50 million. There's nothing wrong with those numbers, but they are hard to get excited about. The same can be said of the movie itself.

Steve Carell stars as Dan, an advice columnist trying to raise his three daughters who travels to his family reunion. There, while in a book store, he meets and instantly falls in love with a woman, whom he later finds out is his bother's girlfriend. A romantic comedy ensues.

Romantic comedies by their very nature tend to be very predictable, and there's almost no getting around that. I can forgive that as long as the rest of the movie works. However, here I also felt that not all of the emotions were genuine. Dan's entire family, including his brother, want him to get over the loss of his wife and are trying desperately to get him to call the new woman, even though he has said she is currently seeing someone. These scenes are meant to ratchet up the emotions, but they felt manipulative. That said, there are more than enough strong performances from the ensemble cast that the film has enough charm to carry the day.

As for the extras, the DVD has the usual selection. There is an audio commentary track with the director, Peter Hedges, which moves at a reasonable pace and gives all the usual information. There are also nearly a dozen deleted scenes, also with commentary, and close to 3 and a half minutes of outtakes. Featurettes include a 15-minute making-of featurette, Just Like Family and a 10-minute featurette on the music from the movie, Handmade Music. Both are worth checking out, and have some replay value. As for the Blu-ray, it has no additional extras and the outtakes are not in High Definition.

Dan in Real Life is a good movie, but not a great movie. It's worth watching, but for me I would say the replay value is a little low. Call it a solid rental or a weak purchase. The Blu-ray version doesn't bring anything new to the film and costs 33% more than the DVD, which is right on the line for being worth the upgrade. Had the film been more visual, it would be worth it, but as it is, the DVD is the better deal.

The Fugitive - Season One - Volume Two - Buy from Amazon
This 4-disc set came out two weeks ago, but the screener arrived late, hence the delay in the spotlight review.

David Janssen stars as Dr. Richard Kimble, a man wrongfully convicted of killing his wife, but while on his way to death row, his train skips off the tracks and he escapes after the crash. He starts a new life as a fugitive with Lt. Philip Gerard hot on his tail everywhere he goes. His only hope: find the one-armed man he saw run away from his house before the police find him.

Or at least that's the setup. In actuality, very few episodes deal directly with the chase or the one armed man, and the show mostly features stories with Dr. Richard Kimble going to a new town, assuming a new name, finding a new job, and helping those in need. In many ways the show shares a lot in common with The Incredible Hulk TV series with Bill Bixby, or the A-Team, or The Littlest Hobo...

Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on.

... moving on indeed.

There's a reason there are so many shows with such a similar setup: it's one of the main hero archetypes and creates a very powerful lead characters. (And David Janssen's acting also helps here.) In volume two of season one, Dr. Richard Kimble helps a nun get to her destination when her car breaks down, gets involved with a casino owner's daughter (who looks a lot like Vanessa Lengies, at least in my opinion), and even helps a man who is arrested for a double murder but claims he's innocent. Of the 15 episodes on volume two, only three really deal with the chase, Search in a Windy City where Kimble returns to Chicago to track down the one-armed man, while The End Game has him trapped by Gerard only to be rescued by Piglet. I'm not kidding, character actor John Fiedler makes a guest appearance in the season finale.

Extras on the four-disc set are as hard to find as the one-armed man, but at least there is a play all button and proper chapter placements. In fact, you can even skip the opening credits, which is good because that train wreck is so fake looking it is laughable. There are no subtitles, but this show was made before the Americans with Disabilities act and therefore didn't run with subtitles to begin with.

A great show with that built a huge following. In fact, when the series ended, it broke records for the highest rated show ever. And from watching The Fugitive - Season One - Volume Two it is easy to see why. Even without extras, it is worth picking up, but start with Volume one.

Lil' Bush - Resident of the United States - Uncensored - Season One - Buy from Amazon
The latest show from Comedy Central is political satire, which is an incredibly hard genre to work in. There are plenty of ways to screw this up, but the biggest sin is forgetting that the comedy is the key. It has to be funny before you worry about it being political. This is something that The Daily Show understands, this is something that The Colbert Report understands, and maybe if this show lasts, its creators will also understand it. But until then we are stuck with this.

Part of the problem with the show is with Bush, the real Bush, who is currently enjoying support of 31.3% of the population. It just makes him too easy a target and the writing it sadly rather lazy. The show goes for the cheap laughs, not only against Bush and his lil' cronies, but also against other Republicans like McCain, against the Democrats like John Kerry, and whatever the hell Joe Lieberman is. Cheap, and often repetitive jokes are substitutes for anything with any real wit or edge to it.

Additionally, on the technical side of things the show was also lacking. For instance, the animation felt very crude at times and was not at all smooth. It is not stylized like with South Park, it just looks cheap. Finally, I didn't like much of the voice work here. The impersonation of Bush doesn't sound like Bush. It sounds like someone who never actually heard Bush but is instead basing his impersonation off of other Bush impersonators. I didn't have high expectations here, but the show still somehow managed to underperform.

There is a good selection of extras on the DVD, on the other hand, starting with audio commentary tracks on every episode by the cast and crew. The commentaries tend to be a little chaotic and a little to self-congratulatory for my taste. There are also other commentaries with special guests Raplph Nader (Global Warming / Hall Monitor), Jerry Springer (Evolution), and Tucker Carlson (Press Corps Dinner). These are not as interesting as they should be. Next up is a bonus episode, "Walter Reed," which they made in case Cheney died in real life... seriously. There is also a short, 2-minute tour of the White House by Lil' Bush, a 6-minute interview featurette with the cast & crew, and finally a 6-minute table read.

This single-disc DVD has all 6 episodes from season one, plus more extras than most TV on DVD releases have. However, its price per minute is still rather high, and the quality of the show is nowhere near what it should be. I can't recommend picking up Lil' Bush - Season One, not even for a rental.

No Country for Old Men - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray
One of the best-reviewed movies of the year, one of the big players this past Awards Season, and the biggest winner at the Oscars. I should be a lot more excited about this DVD than I am.

It's hard to review a movie like this without using so many superlatives that one seems almost like a paid shill. But simply put, this is one of the best movies I've seen, not only from last year, but I've ever seen. The story here is fantastic, dark and gripping. The directing is superb. And the ensemble cast is amazing all the way through. There's a reason this movie won the Oscar for Best Picture; it is an absolute must see. The DVD on the other hand...

Extras are surprisingly light with only three featurettes with a total running time of just 40 minutes. The longest of the three is the making-of featurette that is the usual mix of talking heads, behind-the-scenes footage, and clips from the movie. It's the meatiest of the three featurettes. Working with the Coens has the same format and runs 8 minutes long and it is exactly what it sounds like. Meanwhile, Diary of a County Sheriff runs just under 7 minutes and despite its name, it only focuses partially on the character Sheriff Ed Tom Bell played by Tommy Lee Jones.

I get the distinct feeling that this is not the last version of this movie to come out on DVD or Blu-ray. While No Country for Old Men is an amazing movie, the DVD doesn't live up to the movie. On the one hand, it is worth picking up. On the other hand, it wouldn't be unwise to rent it and wait for the special edition, which I can almost guarantee is on its way.

The Rookie - Blu-ray Edition - Buy from Amazon
This catalogue release came out last week, but my screener didn't arrive, which is why the review is on this week's column.

Dennis Quaid stars as Jimmy Morris, a high school baseball coach dealing with a losing program that has only won one game each of the last two years. In order to inspire his team, he makes a bet: if they can win the division and go to state, he will tryout for professional baseball again, a dream he gave up after he suffered a devastating shoulder injury. I'm sure you can guess what happens next. Yes, it's an inspirational coach movie based on real life events. Okay, it's not the most original idea for a movie, but it is a good movie and one that is worth checking out. The real question is whether it is worth upgrading to the Blu-ray.

Sadly, this is Shovelware. It is just the old DVD released in 2002, upgraded to High Definition; in fact, only the movie was upgraded to High Definition and the extras are still in standard definition. There is a good selection here starting with an audio commentary track, 8 deleted scenes with introductions, a 20-minute making-of featurette, and 8 minutes of baseball tips.

The Rookie on Blu-ray is a typical catalogue release that does nothing to take advantage of the technology available. Even at just $20, it is hard to recommend upgrading. On the other hand, this is the latest in a string of Blu-ray releases from Disney that include a $10 mail-in rebate if you own the DVD, which is a real deal.

South Park Imaginationland - Buy from Amazon
A three-episode story arc from season 11 released as a "new feature-length DVD movie." At least the marketing department is still full of imagination.

The show starts off with the boys trying to hunt down a leprechaun because Cartman bet Kyle that he saw a leprechaun and if he did, Kyle would have to ... and this next part is in white partly because it is a spoiler, and partly because it is just so immature... suck Cartman's balls. Kyle actually loses the bet, but refuses to go through with it and Cartman is forced to take him to court, and wins. Here's the problem, no contract that deals with an illegal act is legally enforceable, that's first year law school stuff, not arcane minutia that only a few would know about. I mention this because if the show were better, I wouldn't care about this point. But I couldn't really get into the story because, and this is rather ironic, it lacked imagination. For instance, the whole battle between good and evil with one of the main characters acting as a chosen one was done before in Best Friends Forever with Kenny being the Neo defeating Satan's army.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe the whole point of this three-episode story arc about the terrorist attack on Imaginationland is that our imagination is dying and all that's left is derivative repeats. Or maybe Trey Parker and Matt Stone are just running out of ideas. The amount of repetition in this story suggests the latter is more likely.

Extras include an audio commentary track, which starts out strong, wavers rather quickly, and then ends early in episode three. The other extras include two scenes done it storyboard form. (Really? The final animation is barely above the storyboard level, so this seems pointless.) And finally there are two bonus episodes, both of which have been released on DVD before, more than once in the first case. Overall it is below adequate.

Skip it. Skip it and if you are a fan of the show then buy it when it comes out on a full season set. It will be a better bargain then.

Stargate - Ark of Truth - Buy from Amazon
The first direct-to-DVD follow-up to Stargate SG-1, which was one of the most successful Science Fiction series of all times, lasting 10 years, not to mention a second series, Stargate: Atlantis. Since this is such a popular show, there are two questions that must be asked when reviewing it. Firstly, will fans of the show enjoy it? Secondly, will neophytes be able to get into it.

The show takes place after the events of series finale, which many fans found unsatisfying. But at least now we know why: the show isn't over. Because of this, there is no way to really talk about the movie effectively without going into way too many spoilers either for it or for the past two seasons. I will say that even if you are a fan of the early seasons but haven't watched seasons 9 and 10 yet, watch the prelude first. I can't emphasize that enough. If you have never seen the show ever, watching the prelude won't help explain a whole lot of what's going on, but it will answer a few questions you have. But to be honest, I don't think the movie works as a separate entity from the series. While you could probably walk in never having seen the show and enjoy it on one level, it won't be truly satisfying without knowing the full back-story.

As for fans of the show, they should love it. It has everything the show had, but bigger. Ark of Truth felt like it was operating on a larger scale. Part of this had to do with scope of the story as well as the bigger budget, more effects, etc. Also, part of this was due to the pacing. Because a TV episode has a very set runtime, you can't have shots linger, you can't afford to marvel at the size of a spaceship flying through space or watch as an imposing figure walks down a hallway, for instance. But with a movie that doesn't have a predetermined and very strict time limit, you can do this and this pacing makes the movie feel epic. Tighter pacing, which is often employed these days in movies, tends to make the final product feel cramped. Feel boxed in. Feel smaller than it should be. This isn't a problem here. This doesn't feel like a two-part episode, but it feels like a movie.

As for the extras, the DVD delivers. Things start off with an audio commentary track with writer / director / producer Robert Cooper, D.P. Peter Woeste, and actor Christopher Judge. (On a side note, there is no audio commentary on the prelude.) There is a lot of information here, the pace moves quickly and there are not very many dead spots, but they do pop up here or there. Worth listening to and it does have replay value. Other extras include a 30-minute making-of featurette called Uncovering the Ark of Truth that is the usual mix of talking heads, behind-the-scenes footage, and clips from the movie. (On a side note, Michael Shanks is interviewed wearing an old school, "Flying Skate" Canucks T-shirt, which makes him the coolest person on the show.) Finally, there's a 20-minute Q&A session at Comic-con.

Overall, fans of Stargate SG-1 should be very happy with Stargate - Ark of Truth and the DVD is certainly worth picking up for fans of the show. Newcomers to the franchise might get lost at times, but there's still enough that it's worth a rental. And if renting it makes you get into the show, all the better.

Looking forward to Continuum, which comes out this summer.