Planet of the Apes (DVD)
Starring: Mark Wahlberg
Synopsis: IMDB

When I heard they were remaking Planet of the Apes, one of my favourite movies growing up, I was actually quite thrilled. When I found out Tim Burton was going to be the Director I shuddered knowing it would be a mess. It should be common knowledge that Tim Burton makes fabulous looking movies, but he has absolutely no storytelling skills. My other real issues was Mark Wahlberg, he is a terrible actor and only seems to be able to put across angry and/or cocky on screen. Still I decided to give the movie a chance when it came to DVD.

3 Martini's couldn't make this a better movie. Yes, it looked great and I thought all the actors portraying the apes did a great job, but this movie is so far removed from the original and has no apparent story to tell. And the end makes no sense except as a set-up for a sequel.

This is by far the most dissapointing movie I have seen in a long time. It's time for Tim to go back to film school and learn something about telling a story and the importance of plot.

Swordfish (DVD)
Starring: John Travolta, Halle Berry, Hugh Jackman
Synopsis: IMDB

Though it has a great cast, I had no interest in this movie when it was in it's theatrical run. Finally getting to see it on DVD proved my instincts were right. This is a fairly typical Hollywood action movie; take one very implausible plot, throw in some big stars, add a dash of interesting visual effects and you should have a hit. The core of this movie is the deception and relations between the characters and the director doesn't spend enough time building and following that. He seems more concerned on getting from one action sequence to the next. It so lost on him that he actually shot multiple endings which are viewable in the bonus features section.

This isn't a bad movie, it's just nothing special, which it could have been had more time been spent on the characters themselves.

Evolution (DVD)
Starring: David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Julieanne Moore
Synopsis: IMDB

Ivan Reitman, a director known for his comedies, seems to be trying to repeat with Evolution, a film that mixes sci-fi with humour, the formula he pulled off so well with Ghostbusters. This first part if this film however was a little too intense for me with some truly creepy moment with CGI aliens in the form of bugs, worms, and reptiles. There was actually a point in the film where I thought I would have turn it off because it was too intense and not funny enough. However once the aliens evolved to dinosaur and bipedal life forms the focus became more about the humour and relationships bewteen the characters. Even though this is PG-13 and contains little real violence it is far too intense for anyone who does not like to actually be scared. For what it was it was a good film, but it wasn't the comedy the ads portrayed it out to be.

Recess: School's Out
Synopsis: IMDB

That's right I sat through two Disney animated films in one night and I deserve somthing considering this was second on the bill. Based on the Saturday morning show my wife loves, as a feature film this is more entertaining than Atlantis, but it still lacking. The humour wasn't funny enough for me and it was a little slow paced. It's as if they thought if they expanded a script for the tv show and added a few moments of CGI they would have a film. This is just another animated film that makes me thankful Pixar is around, they know what it's all about.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (DVD)
Starring: Michael J Fox
Synopsis: IMDB

Disney's most recent animated feature film is not what you would expect from Disney at all. This movie is not for children and contains a PG rating. It reminded me of the kind of films Don Bluth is more known for. There is know cute animal friends or musical numbers and unfortunately there is no magic either. I have never been so dissapointed by Disney and that's something to say considering I've even watched The Black Cauldron. I'm not sure what their concept was and I'm not sure they were either. The plot is rushed, all characters, except the lead, have practically no depth and it's all very predictable. Very, very, very dissapointing.

The Princess Diaries (DVD)
Starring: Julie Andrews
Synopsis: IMDB

First off it was not my idea to rent this ... LOL I must admit I have really grown to appreciate family films, but still this seemed more of a cross between a "chick flick" and "family entertainment", not exactly my cup of tea. I did enjoy it though, there certainly were issues, characters, and situations that reminded me of what high school was like. I think this is the first film I have seen Julie Andrews in since she bared her breasts in S.O.B (I think that was the film) and Victor Victoria. You can't go terribly wrong with a film directed by Garry Marshall, he knows his way around light hearted comedy. This film will never find it's way into my collection, but it was worth renting it.

Pillow Talk (DVD)
Starring: Rock Hudson and Doris Day
Synopsis: IMDB

This is one of the greatest romantic comedies ever made and winner of an Academy Awars for "Best Screenplay". Pillow Talk marked the first ever pairing of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, who was nominated for a "Best Actress" Academy Award for her work. The movie is filled with humour and sexual tension and never resorts to the kind of over-the-top sentimentality that plagues most romantic comedies. Rock Hudson plays a songwriter playboy who shares a party line with uptight interior decorator Doris Day. Through a chance meeting he is so enamored with her beauty he decides to pose as a wealthy Texan in order to score, but soon he finds himself falling in love. Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter round out the cast and both are brilliant.

Originally released in 1959 the DVD is presented in 2.0 Channel Mono Dolby Digital with a 2.35:1 Widescreen aspect ratio, which is absolutely necessary as one the films best scenes uses splitscreen and in the pan and scan version it cuts back in forth ruining the scene completely. It contains a few bonus features like Bios, Production Notes, and Theatrical Trailer.

SSX: Tricky
Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
From: EA Sports Big
Official Website: ea.com

I rented this game at my local Blockbuster when Tony Hawk Pro Skating 3 was rented out. I knew nothing about it, but thought it looked like it would be similar and fun. This game is one of those minutes to play, lifetime to master. I was immediately addicted and went out and purchased the game as soon as possible.

There are three main modes of play, Race, Showoff, and Time Challenge. In Race the goal is to beat AI opponents and move on through increasingly more difficult rounds, ultimately trying to win the Gold Medal in the finals. In Showoff, you are all alone and the goal is to pull off as many tricks as possible to achieve medal status, however each course has a different amount of points needed and you still need to make it to checkpoints in the allotted time. Time Challenge is all about setting the course record speed record.

All modes of play take place on the same 9 course, but during Showoff the course is modified with additional ramps and stunt rails. There are 12 characters each with unique personalities, their own Trick Books, and have the voices of some popular entertainers like Macy Gray, David Arquette, Oliver Platt, and Lucy Liu. As each character wins more medals their rank moves up unlocking different outfits and boards, the goal being to achieve Master status. You only start with a few characters, so you must win gold medals in order to unlock the other characters in addition you can also unlock two courses.

This game is a port of the PS2 version and doesn't really take advantage of the Gamecube's graphics abilities. The water textures are laughable and the frame rate visibly slows down when too many racers are going through turns at the same time. The frame rate issue however does not effect gameplay. I found the controls super easy to master, though there are so many tricks it's hard to keep straight what combinations do what, because of that they included a trick tutorial for each player so that you could practice their tricks before entering a competition.

The repeat play aspect of the game comes from the level designs. There are so many short cuts that at the end of every run you are positive you can go back and complete the track quicker or get a higher trick score. It's positively addictive.

Tron (20th Anniversary Collector's Edition) (2 DVD Set)
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner
Synopsis: See IMDB Entry

I'm not going to spend much time talking about the film itself. Most people know TRON for it's revoltionary use of computer created imagery. TRON is far from flawless, but the same can be said for many important films, what this film has is a visual style completely unlike any other film.

For this DVD set Disney restored the film and remixed the sound into Dolby Digital 5.1, the previous DVD released in 1998 was in 4.1 with the surrond channels being mono. Typical of most remixes from older sources the surround channels are used more for adding depth to the sound and aren't as busy as I'd like them to be. The sound is still not very submersive which is a shame because Wendy Carlos's score is amazing and a big part of what makes them film wonderful. The key to Tron is that they created such a stylized look for the film that though containing archaic computer imagery it still looks wonderful today and this version is by far the best looking the film has been since it's original release in 1982.

This release contains all of the bonus material previously released in the TRON Archive Edition laserdisc box set released in November 1995. What is new is a wonderful 88 minute documentary called "The Making of TRON" it features interviews with most of the major behind the scene people and actors, but noticably missing are interviews with actor David Warner and composer Wendy Carlos. I especially would like to have heard from Wendy she gave TRON such a unique atmosphere through her score it would be great to hear where she came up with the ideas and how they compared to the initial concept for the music. I know Disney's decision to cut the piece that ran with the end credits in favour of adding a song by Journey did not make her very happy and the bonus DVD includes the alternate credits. There is also a very brief set of concept drawings for the sequel, tentitevly titled TRON 2.0.

What I think is missing from this DVD is an alternate version that removes the Journey songs in favor of Carlos's score, which would make the film less dated, and I would have liked them to loop the only deleted scene, for which the audio track has sadly been lost, and put it back in the movie. Overall though this DVD really does a great job of putting together a testament to this important film.

Wating For Guffman (DVD)
Starring: Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, Parker Posey
Synopsis: See IMDB Entry

This is basically the same group of people who would go on to make Best In Show like that film this one revolves around a quirky set of characters and is presented in an informal documentary style. I didn't find this film as humorous, it was quaint at best. The humor was far too subdued and the characters weren't quirky enough to make them funny.

Trillian (software for PC)
Official Site: Trillian

Trillian was, like Blogger.com, was something I discovered through TechTV's The Screen Savers. As someone who has identities through AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger, I had always dreamed of software that could manage all the accounts at once. Trillian does just that and it does it extremely well.

Not only can Trillian serve as the messenger client for all of those services and be an IRC client as well, it also allows you to have multiple profiles so other people who use your system can log in as well. But here is the real clincher to me. Trillian allows multiple users to have all of their accounts logged in at the same time from one instance of the program. That means I launch Trillian once and not only does it log me into all of my messenger services (even multiple screen names for one service) it also can log my wife in to her's at the same time. If you share Buddies as we do when you click a buddy to message them it asks who you want the message to come from. It also adds a lot of fun Icons and sounds, but those are only compatible with other Trillian users.

Best of all the software is free, though it's well worth sending in a donation. AOL has been trying repeatedly to find a way to block Trillian users from being able to log in to AIM. They say it's for "security purposes", but let's get real, it's because Trillian doesn't have any advertisements and since it's not AIM, AOL can't make you look at that "Try AOL 7.0 Free" ad they keep up permanently on your Buddy List.

There is a downside, Trillian is becoming so popular their website usually runs at a crawl.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (The Director's Edition) (DVD)
Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy, DeForest Kelley
Synopsis: See IMDB Entry

I can remember seeing this movie in the theatre in 1979. It's one of the, maybe, 4 times I ever went to the movies with my Dad. The original cut of the movie is known for looking beautiful, but suffering from terrible pacing. Though this version is longer I found the the new edit greatly helped the pace of the movie. There is new digital effects as well, but unlike Star Wars these are actually subtle and don't really alter the movie in anyway. I found the new 5.1 Dolby Digital mix a little too reserved for my taste. The score sounds wonderful, but I like really active surround channels and and lots of subwoofer. The one thing that really struck me watching it this time is that this movie is so completely unlike the original series; there's no fighting, no alien babes making it with Captain Kirk, and no real villain for Kirk to battle against. This movie is much more like The Next Generation, dealing with the relationships of the characters and being about the mystery of what their nemisis is and wants. It is a tour de force for special effects and I'm still in awe of just how good it looks. I found the print restoration to not be up to par with other movies recently treated to similar remastering, it's not very crisp though it's certainly better than any other release of the film.

I rented this and only got Disc 1, so I haven't been able to dive into all the bonus material which is usually what I'm more interested in. I also didn't listen to the audio commentary because at well over 2 hours I simply didn't have the time or energy to watch it twice. This definitely gets added to my lists of DVDs I need to get.

Exciter (CD)
Artist: Depeche Mode

First off let me say I am a long time Depeche Mode fan and I even met them on the Devotional Tour. There was a lot of hype preceding the release of Exciter as it was being said that this album would be the "sonic cousin to Black Celebration". I was thrilled that the band was going to be releasing something sonically similar to what is perhaps the milestone in sample driven pop records.

Exciter, however, does not live up to it's title. This album is low key and though filled with interesting textures it lacks the sonic diversity necessary to allow each track's production to come through. I've listened to it dozens of times and each time I've been left in a daze from boredom. It isn't easy for me to say this, but I really think this is the worst album they have ever done. I want to say the problem is the producers, but it's not, the problem is within the band. Between Martin's lack of interest in writing uptempo songs and Alan not being there to make sure the songs have dynamics and DM's trademark layers of melodic parts each song is left sounding too similar. There are a few bright moments like "freelove" and "shine" but you really have to listen to the tracks outside of the albums context to realize how great they are. My hope is that the band will enlist someone to produce the next record that will force them to shake off the midtempo atmospherics and make them get back to recording the anthemic, driving songs they are known for.