Season 6 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the most daring yet: You will lose not one but two major characters in the core franchise (to differing degrees), and the levels of violence, both physical and psychological, have risen considerably to nearly R-rated territory. Season 5 was to me a blazing high point given the introduction of Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn and the hilarious Clare Kramer as Glory, and Season 6 goes back to more the ups and downs that riddled Seasons 3 and 4. Not all the episodes are equally strong, but when Season 6 hits the mark, it tears up the joint, and even when it doesn't work, you see the show taking admirable risks.

One problem with this season is that its central villains are watery: The Trio, three Star Wars-obsessed nerds who can do dark magic and make robots. They just don't have the spark of bad-girl slayer Faith, evil Angel, or crazy, vain hell god Glory, though Adam Busch is suitably slimy as Trio leader Warren, a misogynistic tech whiz who becomes more and more detestable as time goes on. But it's just too easy to dismiss them because they just, well, aren't fun enough to watch, and you just don't have enough sympathy towards them for them to become first-class villains. All the classic Buffy villains were likeable (Spike and Faith being especially so), and the Trio is not.

In interviews Joss Whedon said that they believe "When Buffy's in pain, the show is good". I've always felt they took this adage too far beginning with Season 3 -- Buffy's become such a brooder that she frequently borders on self-pity. So it's no surprise that I find the comedic episodes the most enjoyable: "Life Serial" has the Trio messing up Buffy's life with a series of zany tests, the best of which has Buffy stuck in a Groundhog Day-style loop inside the Magic Box store; writer Rebecca Rand Kirshner's "Tabula Rasa" is for me the high point of the season as magic-addicted Willow messes up a spell and erases everybody's memory, leaving it a free-for-all for the characters to theorize about who's who; and "Gone" brings back a Buffy I've missed sorely, the impish, fun-loving gal, as she's turned invisible by a freakish Trio accident and discovers the freedom (and danger) of not being seen.
The fabled musical episode "Once More, with Feeling" was such a hot idea that I know I had unfulfillable expectations of the episode, and it didn't turn out to be as fun as I thought -- too many of the lyrics were direct expressions of what the characters were feeling. But there remain delights -- Dawn's "ballet fight" with entertainment demon Sweet is hilarious, and Xander and Anya's "I'll Never Tell" is enjoyable, reminds me of the recent French musical Jeanne et le Garcon Formidable.

Buffy's psychological torment in this season is a hit-or-miss affair. The concept is fascinating -- when Buffy is brought back from the dead and we suspect maybe she would rather have stayed there. But it also often pits the character into the worst kinds of self-importance, such as when she thinks she's committed a murder and turns all high and mighty with moral indignation. The theme has been explored a long time ago (in the episode "Ted"), and far better. But Sarah Michelle Gellar seems to have rediscovered the important bubbly side of the Buffy dichotomy early in the season (or maybe the zanier episodes allowed her to show it), resulting in one of her better performances. Alyson Hannigan hits a peak with her portrayal of Willow's magic addiction, then heartbreak and turn towards evil, and Nicholas Brendon and Emma Caulfield's work in "Hell's Bells" is exemplary, when Xander and Anya find their relationship fracturing -- on the day of their wedding.

It's hard not to lose momentum six years into a show and Buffy the Vampire Slayer should get honorable mentions for still being able to deliver on many levels. Many parts of this season feel laborious and the overall arc is messier than usual, but as usual, the rewards are worth it.

Any enjoyment you might derive from this game is from playing as Jet Li in an old-school fight setting. When the novelty of that wears off, what you have left is an incredibly repetitive game with a godawful camera and an ill-advised control scheme.

Yes, bonus marks are in order for using Cantonese in Hong Kong with subtitles. (As a native Hong Kong person I can say the dialogue is less stilted, though still flawed, than usual) Though I might add that international espionage games like Syphon Filter has been doing that for years. The settings are authentic enough, with the battles in the Hong Kong settings being especially evocative of kung fu films.

But is it worth the very problematic gameplay? Just barely. If you've seen/played the demo already, you'll know that the entire fight system consists of slapping the right analog stick. While the array of moves you can unleash is impressive, motion-captured well from Li's own silhouette, this system is very ill conceived from a fighting-game perspective. Worse still, the camera is so restless that you could be in the middle of a combo against an enemy, and then the perspective shifts so that you're suddenly hitting at air and the enemy's to the side. So many game designers have misled notions about being filmmakers, not realizing that the best perspective for gaming is a fixed perspective. This problem came to a head during the ludicrous "escape from capture" stage where the camera actually cuts you off, preventing you from seeing what's behind you, even though there are guards sweeping flashlights that way that you're supposed to avoid! This is simply a moronic use of the camera.

Aside from this, the fighting gets tired awfully quickly, especially since the designers committed the ol' "this level never ends" sin. This game alleviates this problem by having lots of checkpoints where you can continue the game, but during some of the "one against 14" stages, the endless brawling still gets tired. And whose idea was it to have enemies pull of 18-hit combos, where if you get hit the first time, you get to watch your character get pummelled for 10 seconds straight?

I actually find the gunfight segments of this game more fun than the endless, endless hand-to-hand stages. This is where the dual analog sticks truly shine, allowing you to smoothly run from spot to spot forwards and backwards while your hands can aim independently and a top button allows you to do Time Crisis-style ducking. There's even a crazy level where you fight off about 100 enemies with two nailguns!

This game would probably remain tempting to Jet Li fans because of the role-playing aspect of it. And I wouldn't blame them -- this was my reason for buying this game, and there are a few levels that I truly enjoyed. The overall game, however, is really not that great, and I would recommend only playing it in small doses. It will get tired mightily quickly if you sit with it for more than an hour.

An open letter to writers Mark Androvich and Greg Off: This is without a doubt one of the worst strategy guides I've ever used.

The consensus is that Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain is an incredibly difficult game, so a strategy guide is essential for those of us who don't fancy spending four hours trying to solve one part of a video game.

To give this book a little credit, I was able to follow 50 per cent of the general directions on when to go where in the game. But the layout and writing are so horrible that I ended up sitting there, with the game on pause, desperately trying to interpret what the writers truly meant when they wrote a certain passage. I'm not talking grammar or syntax here; I'm talking about "right" when it should have been "left"! After about two levels in the game I realized that the writers' sense of direction is plain wrong and began exploring the game on my own, using the book only as a loose tour book, and that helped. They also adore giving you the second-worst solution to many of the activities: Their recommendation to use the K-bar knife on Thae-bok Jon in the Yemen Arms Bazaar cost me 10 replays of the game until I realized you could simply shoot him with a silenced rifle. Aren't strategy guides supposed to spare you the pain by giving you the easiest, quickest solution? If I'd listened to my own instincts, I would have finished the level long ago.

I'm still using this guide to help get past this overly difficult, design-flawed game. Without any kind of signpost, this game is just too nonlinear and confusing to warrant a try. However, having to "interpret" the writing, and wade through the bad advice, is something a reader of a strategy guide shouldn't ever have to do. A very bad job, Mr. Androvich and Mr. Off.

If the willingness to take risks is the mark of a great artist -- and I believe it is -- then Monsieur Verdoux is Charles Chaplin's greatest films. And amidst all the controversy stirred by his portrayal of a serial wife killer, it's easy to forget that it's also a hilarious black comedy with plenty of sharp lines that would have succeeded even without its sociological message.

Chaplin's ability as an actor is pushed to a new level on this film through his portrayal of a morally ambiguous, unscrupulous ex-bank clerk who has no qualms about putting a body into an incinerator in his backyard. While much has been said about this film's break with Chaplin's Little Tramp character, careful examination reveals that Henri Verdoux is just a logical, and daring, advancement in the character: The more devilish, sometimes sadistic sides of the Little Tramp taken to their inevitable conclusion, where comic mischief crosses over the line to villainy. And it's highly compelling, the perfect foil to Chaplin's most heartwarming films (eg. City Lights and Modern Times), allowing Chaplin to express an insidiousness hitherto unexplored. Martha Raye nearly steals the show as the airheaded, supernaturally unkillable Mme. Bonheur (the name itself means "happiness"), and Marilyn Nash is winning as the Belgian derelict who inspires a spark of compassion in Verdoux. The conclusion of this character relationship is one of Chaplin's most complex writing feats: Imagine the ending of City Lights twisted into a dark, steely, uncompromising version of itself.

There are certain moments when the film does threaten to fall into self-involvement -- in his later years, Chaplin did let his ego take ahold of his work -- but in the case of Monsieur Verdoux, he uses this larger-than-life persona so well, and it fits the character so snugly, that the ego becomes an advantage and adds to the depth of the character. And the script has none of the self-conscious mix of silent film and talkies that plagued The Great Dictator; Chaplin had grown quite well into dialogue writing, allowing him to formulate moments of murderous irony that are cuttingly funny. ("Don't pull the cat's tail...") I have no problems with the ending speeches in this film as I did with the final speech of The Great Dictator: In the context of this story, they fit in quite well. Verdoux at the end is a man who has given up all hope, and he seems to mock his own fate and character while unmercifully unveiling his anger at the world. The speeches are not meant to be taken for face value, and I find them thought-provoking and fascinating rather than moralistic or self-important.

I first saw this film at Symphony Space in New York City and the audience was laughing so hard it was in tears. With modern audiences generally less inclined to judge a film by its "moral standing" (Kill Bill, anyone?), Monsieur Verdoux can be seen for what it is: A hilarious, complex sociological examination which identifies social ills while at the same time taking part in it. In that, it is unique in the Chaplin canon and deserves to rank among his most important films.

A quick note about this DVD edition: For some reason, the bonus materials for this film are far less numerous than on the other DVDs in this series -- hence the single-disc package and lower price. By the standards of this series of reissues, the DVD materials are really quite scant -- a useful yet brief half-hour documentary featuring good insight from director Claude Chabrol, a trailer, some storyboards. The picture and sound are of good quality, however, and the film is one to own. Highly recommended.

Stealth games tend to carry a high level of frustration, and this game's no exception.

Luckily, the gameplay in the Gameboy Advance version of Splinter Cell is smooth enough to keep you coming back. But a large chunk of the enjoyment is eliminated by the poor game-save system. You could plow through six or seven different parts, hanging on to your health by a thread, and then miss one step and get blasted back several steps in the game. Some repeat gameplay is necessary for this genre, but this one goes too far.

The graphics are unexceptional but acceptable. The idea of having multiple puzzles to solve (for example, when you upload top-secret files to your superiors, the game gives you a twisty maze puzzle to solve) is a great one and adds to the scope of the game. However, they really should have added a much more comprehensive tutorial to the Training level of this game. While the puzzles tend to be very intuitive, the in-game obstacles are not. How about actually telling us that our rifle is silenced and that you can shoot cameras out without alarming the guards? Or how to get around an automatic gun turret without being seen? No One Lives Forever did a great job in this department, training you in the use of gadgets and various in-game activities before you're thrown out into the missions, preventing unnecessary replays just to figure out what to do.

I do play this game quite a bit, despite the high frustration factor, but by the time I'm forced to replay certain boneheaded parts of a mission the 30th time just because of one super-tough obstacle at the end, the enjoyment's sucked dry. They should have added more checkpoints along the missions. As it stands, this is a good game, but if you're only a casual game player like me instead of a thumb wizard, you better be prepared for multiple repetitive, eventually tiring replays.

Black Sabbath didn't have the revolutionary recording techniques or melodic sophistication of Led Zeppelin, but in terms of sheer brawn, Sabbath is right up there among the greats. No classic-rock collection is complete without at least two or three of these eight records, and if you want the complete lexicon of heavy metal, you will find it here.

This package is well conceived, classily packaged, with a velvet hard-covered book and the eight albums in Digipak format. Sabbath records in CD format never had much in terms of notes so the format is suitable. You will also get the complete lyrics in the book. The history of the band, written by Chris Welch and Brian Ives, is scanty and contains very little that you won't find elsewhere (I actually found the liner notes to the Reunion live double CD more informative), but they are at least reverent enough about their subjects. Here is a disc-by-disc rundown:

1. Black Sabbath: The debut album, ridiculed by critics, a dark-horse favourite among fans despite two very long, rambling jams. But worth it for ominous title track "Black Sabbath" alone, and "The Wizard" shows that this band wasn't too bad at blues, its original chosen music style, either.

2. Paranoid: This record is so legendary that in a way familiarity breeds contempt, but you still can't deny the power of Tony Iommi's massive guitar riffs. The underrated Geezer Butler/Bill Ward rhythm section comes into its own on "Paranoid" and the painfully slow groove of "Iron Man", and Iommi's crushing guitar tone keeps the very long "War Pigs" in focus.

3. Master of Reality: Not one of my favourite Sabbath albums, this album was hurt by the muffled recording but remains a landmark nonetheless. The guitars on "Children of the Grave" remind me a little of Deep Purple, and "Into the Void"'s central riff is pretty much the blueprint for most of Slayer's music in the past 20 years. Tony Iommi stretching out into melodic, quiet material on "Orchid", "Embryo" and "Solitude" shows that this band was more versatile than given credit for.

4. Vol. 4: Featuring one of the brasher mixes in this batch, Vol. 4 takes time to grow on you. "Supernaut"'s panoramic harmonized guitars are one of Iommi's finest moments, and "Cornucopia" juxtaposes a deceptively cheery vocal melody with evil riffs and lyrics.

5. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: A metal classic, with the propelling title track being the standout. "A National Acrobat" utilizes a twin-guitar assault soon to be appropriated by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and "Spiral Architect" creates a fantastic sense of mystique.

6. Sabotage: My personal favourite, this one contains the ten-minute tirade "Megalomania", where Black Sabbath demonstrates how to write an immensely heavy slow part, then launches into one of its most searing rifforamas. "Hole in the Sky" is manic, and "Symptom of the Universe"'s megaton riff may well be the song that gave birth to the immensely influential Metallica rhythm guitar sound.

7. Technical Ecstasy: Weaker than all the rest, this album seems to find the band losing its identity. Both sonically and arrangement-wise, Sabbath actually sounds a little like Blue Oyster Cult! If there's one Sabbath record that sounds like it aspires towards arena rock, this is it -- and it doesn't suit the band well.

8. Never Say Die!: The recording has improved marginally. "Breakout" is a great guitar track, and the title track points to the direction Ozzy Osbourne would take with his solo material.

9. The bonus DVD: Those who have seen Black Sabbath's black-and-white music video for "Paranoid" (yes, it exists) know that this band was very bad for the music-video treatment. Ozzy tends to stand around bobbing his head, and the band is rooted to the spot (when your drummer's your most active performer, you know you're not tailored for the camera). But the performances -- live takes of "Iron Man", "Paranoid", "Black Sabbath" and a bizarre cover of "Blue Suede Shoes", juiced up with cheesy '70s effects -- have a naive charm to them. Geezer's bass is seriously out of tune with Iommi's guitar, though. I also wish they would have included that black-and-white video of "Paranoid".

This boxed set is a great acquisition for collectors, superior in packaging than the earlier boxed set, The Complete '70s Replica CD Collection. Better priced, too. Granted, it's not for the casual peruser, and newcomers should probably just pick up Paranoid, Sabotage and the debut for an overview, but fans of the band who don't own all these records can now pick them all up in one fell swoop. The price works out to less than if you picked each record up on its own, even though all these records can now be found in the bargain bin, and you get the bonus book and the DVD to boot.

If they had the inclination, the three members of Blonde Redhead could probably be top-notch producers and arrangers for other artists.

Kazu Makino and Amedeo Pace's whiny, thin voices are the stuff of headaches, sounding more breath than vocal cord, but luckily the band's instruments and compositions speak quite well. The band has a seductively unique melodic sense, and the arrangements on this record are just brilliant, a crazy melting pot of chamber music, Renaissance ballads, electronica, arena rock, European dance pop and avant garde. Drummer/percussionist Simone Pace also earns high marks for his varied, flavourful performances, such as the bare-bones tapping of "Equus", the ticking-clock rhythms of "Magic Mountain", and the romantic shuffle of "Messenger".

Again, I highly dislike the vocals on this record, but the glorious soundscapes behind the vocals are too good to ignore. Misery Is a Butterfly is like a This Mortal Coil record without the enchanting female vocals but with the eccentricity turned up several notches. If the band manages to draft a good singer (eg. Caroline Crawley of Shelleyan Orphan/Babacar) into its lineup, it would be unstoppable.

The recording is good, the instrumental players are skilled, and Melissa Auf der Maur's vocal performance contains enough attitude to compensate for its shaky pitch and lack of range.

So what's the problem? Like so many others (even the ever-inventive Faith No More) who have covered Black Sabbath songs, Hand of Doom has stayed entirely too true to the original arrangements and sounds. Black Sabbath is the kind of band that holds a mystical power over its acolytes and it's not surprising that musicians who love the band have a preconceived notion of how these songs should sound. But the tracks on Hand of Doom, though I enjoyed them, sound so close to the originals that I wondered why I didn't just put on the original band. Auf der Maur's female vocals make them minutely different, but I definitely wish Hand of Doom would have been more inventive and done different things with these iconic songs.

And another thing: Do we need to hear yet more renditions of "War Pigs", "Iron Man" and "Paranoid", three of the most legendary (and therefore most tired) songs in the metal canon? The track selection on this EP shows a lack of adventurousness, something Black Sabbath never lost sight of. I would have loved to hear less obvious cover choices such as "Megalomania", "Killing Yourself to Live", "Am I Going Insane (Radio)", "Supernaut", "Zero the Hero", "Trashed", "The Wizard", and "Cornucopia". Instead, we get the three staples from the Paranoid album, songs I wouldn't mind never hearing covered ever again.

Hand of Doom is not bad as music; it's just at a loss for something to say. Hearing a completely faithful cover band may be enjoyable as a live experience, but a record demands more. Why perform and record songs in exactly the same way as they've been done, and done quite well, 30 years ago? I'd definitely recommend Melissa Auf der Maur's idiosyncratic solo record in lieu of Hand of Doom.

I'd missed out on the chance to see Metallica live during this tour in support of the band's eponymous 'Black Album', so Live Sh*t: Binge & Purge is probably the closest I'll come.

This former boxed set is now available in two formats -- a double-CD case and a DVD-style longbox. As far as I can tell from their descriptions, the contents are the same, and typical of Metallica, they give you loads of material for a pretty good price -- three live CDs and two concert DVDs for only a little more than the price of two DVD movies.

The good points:

- The three live CDs span a broad range of songs from the band's history, rather than obsessively focusing on the Black Album.
- The sound quality of the CDs is quite good.
- The performances, especially James Hetfield's vocals and rhythm guitar, are searing.
- The DVD concerts are pretty well shot, if a little bit rough on the editing front. I'd always had reservations about getting this set because I was worried the concert footage would wear thin very quickly, but the band's fiery performances, the inventive staging (such as when Lars Ulrich runs across the stage in the middle of "The Four Horsemen" and jumps onto another kit at the other end) and multiple cameras helped make the viewing experience engaging.

The bad points:
- No booklet. I think they should have made the package a little bigger, a small boxed set, and included the booklet.
- The sound on the DVDs is horrible. I've never heard a professional music-DVD release with so many volume fluctuations and bad sound cuts. It's like listening to a live CD with the engineer whipping the faders up and down for no reason. The vocals are muddy, the lead guitar mixed too far back, and all of the tracks on the DVD sound like they have foam in front of the speakers.
- The format I'd bought, the double-CD case, is just not enough to hold five discs. They should have designed a special Digipak, or used three double-CD jewel cases.
- The live CD contains far, far too much crowd noise, banter and moments of waiting for the music. In a concert setting this might be okay, but as a listening experience, it's dreary to listen to a solid minute and a half of war sound effects before "One" can begin. They should have been more diligent with editing.
- No bonus materials. The videos from the Black Album, and especially the legendary music video for "One", would have made very enticing bonus materials for this set.

Despite its shortcomings, this was the last major official release from Metallica before it entered its bitterly contested 'Load/Reload' phase, so as a document of the band's history, this set is invaluable.

Having just seen Kill Bill, Vol. 2, I can confirm that the interviews and press reports are accurate: By splitting one film into two, what you get are two halves that each has its own very pronounced merits, but need each other to survive. In fact, I think if the two volumes had cross-pollinated a little more, you wouldn't have had just a good movie and a half, but two great films.

But for now, Kill Bill Vol. 1. It's the "action" half of the twins, and it dazzles right from the start with an audacious, extended extreme close-up on Uma Thurman's face. The scene after, the duel between The Bride and Vernita Green, is classic Quentin Tarantino, heralding a return to his outrageous, dramatically intense roots. Probably the strongest scene he's directed since the Mr. Pink-Mr. White altercation in Reservoir Dogs. Unfortunately, after The Bride wakes up from her coma, the dramatic content flies down the meter, with a lot of posing and one-liners but very little in terms of character or emotional satisfaction. Which means it's up to the endless action set pieces to grab our attention. And they do. However, I find them a little too bloody, even though I've spent the last 16 months digging through Shaw Brothers films (through the excellent Celestial Pictures VCD and DVD releases). The endless bloodletting in Kill Bill Vol. 1 is shocking in the beginning, but after about five minutes in the extended climactic massacre, it's numbing.

And for the record, Kill Bill Vol. 1 is not a Shaw Brothers kind of film, despite the Shaw logo which opens the film. You would have to wait until the "training" sequences in Vol. 2 to get Shaw Brothers-style cinema (which Tarantino appropriates very well there). Vol. 1 is much more a paean to the Japanese style of filmmaking: Extremely saturated colours courtesy of cinematographer Robert Richardson (even Shaw films didn't go this far in terms of garish colours -- we're in '80s Kurosawa territory here), emphasis on extreme wide shots, the very long builds, the brilliant music by The RZA. And the martial-arts sequences are modern in their multi-angularity and speed cuts; Shaw Brothers action as epitomized by Chang Cheh's style focuses much more on choreography and mise en scene than multi-angularity, letting long medium shots capture the movement of the actors and fighters, relying very little on cuts.

All in all, the most lacking element in Kill Bill Vol. 1 is still story and character. Uma Thurman has some great moments (such as when The Bride first wakes up in the hospital), but after those blazing first 30 minutes, she will mostly become a statuesque hellfire angel who doesn't have a great deal of emotional advancement. You will get that in spades in Vol. 2, which is hands down a superior story and film -- without the visual eye candy and endless action of Vol. 1, but with such powerful dramatic moments that it barely matters. Again, I think if Tarantino had been able to meld the action and the drama a little more, rather than separate them into two movies that contain most of one and almost none of the other, he would have made both films greater than what they are. As it stands, Vol. 2 will be what truly burns these characters and Tarantino's vision into your mind, while Vol. 1 is the adrenalized thrill ride with energy to spare, but without much in terms of thematic depth.