Private Practice - Season Two - Buy from Amazon
A spin-off of Grey's Anatomy. Grey's Anatomy jumped the shark this past season, but did the same happen to Private Practice?

Short answer... No. It was this bad season one.

This show is like Grey's Anatomy if you amped up the soap opera sex and toned down the medicine. Worse yet, replaced real medicine with touchy-feely crap like acupuncture. To be fair, some parts of the show improved this season, including giving Dr. Addison a bigger leadership role in the practice after she is voted as the new leader of Oceanside. By being the boss, she has to act like a grown-up, which is nice, because none of the rest of her co-workers are capable of doing that. Also, Dr. Charlotte King interacts with the group more after starting a practice of her own in the same building. This is a nice development for me, because Dr. Addison and Dr. Charlotte are the only two characters on the show I can watch without wanting to impale myself on my remote control.

Extras include a featurette / overview on season two, an interview with Chris Lowell, deleted / extended scenes, and outtakes. That's not a whole lot compared to most concurrent releases.

Private Practice - Season Two is arguably better than season one, but it still tilts too heavily to the soap opera end of the scale for my liking. It's not as bad as Desperate Housewives in terms of soapiness, but it's still too much for me to handle.

Transformers - Season Two - Volume One - Buy from Amazon
First a note on the season being split into two volumes. Normally I hate it when they do this; however, while season one was only 16 episodes, season two was 49 episodes, so they could have split the season into three volumes and had the same price per minute, so this is actually a deal and not an obvious cash grab.

This show is firstly a commercial for the toys. Even the most hardcore fan will recognize that. So it comes as no surprise that just as new characters were introduced in season one, season two sees the introduction of several new Transformers, on both sides. The Autobots got Perceptor, Beachcomber, Cosmos, Tracks, as well as the massive Omega Supreme. The Decepticons had a number of new jets added to their ranks (Dirge, Ramjet, and Thrust) as well as the Triple Changers (Astrotrain and Blitzwing). Most of the new characters introduced by the end of season one make return appearances, including the Construticons, Insecticon, and of course the Dinobots. This does mean some of my favorite characters appear less frequently as a result (Jazz) and some of the new characters are either too close to old characters (the new jets hardly stand out, for instance) or are just annoying (Warpath). That said, the quality remains high throughout most of the series and there are several standout episodes, including the two-part Dinobot Island, which introduces many of the new characters. Another two-part episode featuring the Dinobots is Desertion of the Dinobots, and it is another highlight of the season. Unfortunately, the season starts of on a low note with Autobot Spike while another lowlight is A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court, which is just plain goofy.

There are no real extras on the four-disc set, but you can watch the three two-part episodes as they were originally aired, or seemlessly as one long episode. Since you could argue Dinobot Island, Desertion of the Dinobots, and Megatron's Master Plan are among the three best episodes from this season, it's a nice touch. That said, are there no one from the cast or crew that you could ask to do audio commentary tracks? Hell, I bet there are really informed fans out there that would love to do that.

A lot of cartoons I liked as a kid are completely unwatchable today, as my taste in entertainment has become more refined. But going back to see these episodes and it is clear that they are better than the recent movies. I'm disappointed that Transformers - Season Two - Volume One doesn't have extras, but it is still absolutely worth picking up. Now if I could only find a mint Generation 1 edition of Jazz...

The Ultimate Force of Four - Blu-ray - Buy from Amazon
I don't have the The Ultimate Force of Four box set to review. What I have is the four individual Blu-rays that make up the The Ultimate Force of Four box set and according to the studio press release, the only difference is the price. ... and the box.

The four films included are...

The Blind Swordsman - Zatoichi - Buy from Amazon
The Zatoichi franchise is one of the longest running in all of Japanese cinema history with more than two-dozen installments made, not to mention a TV series. The series had previously made an appearance domestically, sort of, as it served as the basis for blind fury. The Blind Swordsman - Zatoichi is either a remake or a re-booting of the franchise, depending on how you look at things.

In the film, Takeshi Kitano stars as the titular swordsman. Zatoichi pretends to be a helpless masseur when he wanders into town during the middle of a Yakuza war. He helps a poor farmer and her gambling addicted nephew, who are being crushed by the protection rates demanded by the gang. He also encounters a pair of traveling geisha sisters, who are on a mission for revenge. Like Four Dragons that I reviewed above, this film features a lot of CG blood, and it is also done for stylistic reasons. However, here is works. It works because the movie itself is simply better. There's a plot you can follow, characters you can care about, and the action scenes are as important to the plot as they are fun to watch. And they are very fun to watch.

Extras on the Blu-ray are rather light with just a behind-the-scenes featurette and an interview featurette. They are substantial featurettes clocking in at more than an hour combined, but I would have liked an audio commentary track, or perhaps something that pushed the technology more. Or at the very least, present them in high definition. The high definition looks good and but like the rest of the films in this box set, only the English language dub is fully High Definition while the original Japanese is a lossy Dolby Digital track.

Iron Monkey - Buy from Amazon
This film is set during the time of Imperial China when many people from the villages headed to cities hoping for protection from the criminals. However, instead they were oppressed by corrupt government officials. The story centers on Dr. Yang, who by day helps the sick and the poor for free by overcharging the rich. He has allies with the corrupt governor, because he treats the head guard, Master Fox, and his men who are injured by the criminal known as the Iron Monkey. However, Dr. Yang is the Iron Monkey, who along with his wife steal from the rich and give to the poor. One day another doctor, Wong Kei Ying, and his son arrive from outside, and because of the doctor's prowess with martial arts, he is immediately suspected of being the Iron Monkey and arrested. At his trial he, and his fellow defendants, are attacked by the Iron Monkey, thus clearing his name. The governor continues to hold his son, Wong Fei-hong, prisoner until he catches the master criminal. The people hate him for this and refuse to offer him food or shelter, everyone except Dr. Yang and his wife. Now Dr. Yang has to defend his alter-ego from Master Fox and his guards, Wong Kei Ying and his impressive martial arts talents, while trying to help his new friend free his son from jail.

I'm of two minds about this movie. On the one hand, the movie itself is excellent hitting the right balance of story and action. It has excellent fight scenes, characters that you can really care for (even the bumbling Master Fox), and enough humor to help emphasize the more dramatic moment. On the other hand, this Blu-ray only has the shorter American cut and only the English language track has any real oomph to it. Additionally, the only extras are two short interviews, presented in standard definition.

Jet Li's Hero - Buy from Amazon: DVD or Blu-ray
Jet Li stars as the nameless hero to returns to the king triumphant in killing the kings three deadliest enemies: Sky, Flying Snow, and Broken Sword. He returns and tells the king the story of how he defeated the greatest fighters of the time, and what we get to witness is some of the most operatically choreographed fight scenes of all time. There's nothing else I can say about the movie without entering unacceptable spoiler territory, and this is a film that must bee seen.

As for the two releases, the DVD has the extras that were found on the previous edition, which include just a making of featurette, some interviews, and storyboards. It also has a new featurette on the making of the action scenes. The Blu-ray has these extras, but nothing exclusive, and none of it is presented in High Definition. Additionally, while the video is good and the film has never looked better on the home market, I was not blown away like I was expecting. For such a visually stunning movie, the video was only better than average for the format. And again, the audio is only lossless in English, and the original Mandarin is given a weaker Dolby Digital track. I have no idea why they would do this, but it has become a habit for the studio. One last note, the Blu-ray comes with a Digital Copy of the movie and if you are fan of these, as I am, it makes the Blu-ray the obvious choice.

Legend of the Drunken Master - Buy from Amazon
Jackie Chan stars as Wong Fei-hong. Some of you might be saying, 'Wait a minute. That name sounds familiar.' It's the name of the son in Iron Monkey, and that is not a coincidence, as both movies are based on the same Chinese folk hero legend. In the movie, Wong Fei-hong gets mixed up in a plot by members of the British consul to steal priceless Chinese artifacts and sneak them out of the country while Chinese nationalists are trying to prevent this. This is mostly immaterial and what really matters are the fight scenes. In the movie, Jackie Chan's character practices Zui Quan, a.k.a. Drunken Boxing, which is a form of martial arts where you pretend to be drunk while fighting. Pretend. However, he learns that when he's actually drunk, he fights better. You can see where this is going.

This is one of Jackie Chan's best movies, as it combined action and humor to a near perfect degree. It also has a degree of creativity that a lot of martial arts do not have, both in use of locations and in characters. For instance, the early fight under the train is still one of my favorite fight scenes of all time and the use of the cramped space is excellent. Even better are the fight scenes with Anita Mui, who plays Wong Fei-hong's step-mother. Being a traditional time in China, she's not allowed to learn martial arts, but without her husband's knowledge, she has become a master herself. In the fight scenes, she has to go from kicking ass to pretending to be helpless in seconds, all to keep up the illusion.

That's the good news, the movie is excellent. Now for the bad news... The Blu-ray is crap. It's the edited, English-only dub. You can listen to it in Spanish and French, but the original Cantonese is MIA. I don't mean the original Cantonese using a lossy Dolby Digital track; there is no Cantonese track. Additionally, the only extra is a seven-minute interview with Jackie Chan.

Of the four movies in The Ultimate Force of Four - Blu-ray Box Set, all four are worth owning. However, it would be much better if they had the original audio tracks with lossless audio. At least three of the four you can listen to with original language, even if it is a lossy audio encoding. If I thought these films would be released on Blu-ray with the original cuts and with the original language tracks is lossless high definition, I would say save your money and wait. However, that's not going to happen for a long, long time, if ever.