Aqua Teen Hunger Force ('ATHF') is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Starring late on night on the Cartoon Network's 'Adult Swim', ATHF centers around a narcissistic milkshake, Master Shake, a genius batch of frenchfries with super powers, Frylock, and a sizzling ball of hamburger meat, Meatwad. The three form a detective agency/squad (The Aqua Teen Hunger Force, natch) and noisily "solve" mysterious events, much to the continued annoyance of their pot-bellied and 'self-employed' neighbor Carl. Sound bizarre? You have no idea. ATHF is some sort of sick, demented combination of Super Friends, South Park, and all those unintentionally creepy cartoons from the early 80s like The Snorks. Read: it rocks.

This series is one of the most consistently entertaining, funny, and quotable I've ever seen. Each episode starts with some sort of bizarre creation or device either escaping from or otherwise being generated at the lab of Dr. Wierd in his castle on the New Jersey shore. Whatever that creation is, it inevitably ends up involving our heroes in very short order. The best episodes involve the Mooninites, a pair of pixelated freaks straight out of Moon Patrol or some other 1981 Atari game with mouths like children on South Park. The Mooninites descend from, naturally, the Moon, and proceed to wreak havoc with their kleptomania and ability to fire extremely slow, square video game bullets at people ("The bullet is enormous! Jumping..is useless.")

A hilarious side plot involves the fixation of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force on the joys of basking in Carl's above-ground pool. In one classic moment, Carl puts up neon racing stripes around his pool:

Carl: Yeah.. my pool looks like it's tearin' arse around the backyard..'cept it's standing still. Still waters run deep.
[enter Shake]
Shake: Carl! Whoa, that pool is tricked out...turbo!
Carl: You stay away from it..because you are wierd.

In another episode, as Carl is blasted into the sky, his final lingering shriek is 'Stay out of my poooooool!' In short, this is a series that was clearly a blast for the animators to put together, and it's just as much fun to watch. I recommend it to anyone with even the faintest hint of appreciation for the absurd.

The Running Man is a film based on a surprisingly good short story by Stephen King. King's tale, a sort of beefed-up '1984', has a man on the run not only from the law, but from a repressive society at large. It's gritty, gruesome, and so different from the film as to be nearly unrecognizable.

The film itself is quite good, although it should be noted from the onset that it has a lot of truly agonizing mid-1980s styles and mannerisms. Some seem almost farcical, such as the earrings and female hairstyles, but if you can look beyond them you'll likely enjoy this film. In a nutshell, good ol' Arnie plays a cop (really a special police trooper) who refuses to fire on unarmed food rioters and is arrested. Society has been transformed into a totalitarian nightmare where the masses are controlled through the media and spoon-fed various gameshows such as 'Climbing for Dollars' where people try to avoid attack dogs and earn cash prizes, and of course the most popular, the Running Man. The Running Man itself is a gameshow in which fugitives are released into 200 square blocks (the "game zone") of burnt out LA and then chased around by stalkers as a live studio audience watches. You can probably see where this is going.

Long story short, of course Arnie and his buddies end up in The Running Man show and are chased around by some colorful and entertaining stalkers. The film does a fairly good job of playing around with the underlying social commentaries of facism and media control (Robocop actually does a better job, and there are similar tongue-in-cheek remarks made in Starship Troopers). Stalkers are picked to chase our heroes by housewives who like them "big and cuddly," audience members are chosen a la The Price is Right to win extra prizes including "The Running Man Home Version" board game, and as Arnie smashes, bludgeons, mauls, and one-liners his way through the various stalkers sent to kill him, he gradually wins over the crowd, and manages to roll back the media control gripping the masses.

The film isn't nearly as gritty as the novel, and often seems downright cartoonish, with stalkers effectively interchangeable with modern professional wrestlers (in a few cases literally, such as Jesse "Captain Freedom" Ventura, who does a hilarious turn as a retired champion tapped to do away with vexatious Ahnold and who refuses to wear pastic robot armor for the home audience). All in all the film is a guilty pleasure with its endlessly entertaining one-liners and is about on par with Total Recall for its production values. As Arnold pictures go, I think it loses out to classics such as Conan the Barbarian or Predator, but still deserves a place in your DVD library.

I miss Empire Strikes Back so much. Where in any of the new films is there a moment even approaching the intensity of the scene where Lord Vader both talks smack to Luke and then lops his freakin' arm off? I think anyone who saw that movie remembers how shocking that instant was, as well as how well-framed.. the sweep of the light saber, the shortened, mangled limb held aloft in a moment of pure shock for both Luke and the audience itself.

Now, it turns out that actually ol' Hayden "Mini-Vader" Christensen loses his hand in this film too. Does anyone even remember it? It's before the Yoda/Doku fight, and thrown in almost as if someone smacked themselves on the forehead and "Oh yeah, Vader here has to somehow transition from a golden-haired diety into a half-machine terror of the entire universe. Uh, have him lose a hand or something, that was a hit last time. Now where's my latte?"

I think that comparison alone reveals the fundamental flaw in Attack of the Clones. It is far too timid for its own good. It is concerned solely with checking off the box for each "Star Wars Moment" that it believes the audience demands, without creating anything new.

Attack of the Clones _is_ better than the Phantom Menace, mostly because Jar Jar is held to about 3 lines, and there is no tow-headed moppet spouting inane dialogue. Moreover much of the other silliness was appropriately shelved: Midichlorians (aka Force cooties), Anakin's "immaculate conception" and other wackiness are, thankfully, never ever mentioned again. Unfortunately, others are kept: Again, nearly all the combat takes place against robots, which I believe actually makes the combat more desensitizing than less. Blasters and light sabers are now practically antiseptic in their use, meaning that there is no grittiness (read: adult content) what so ever. There are many thermometers one can use to read the health of the films, but I find the transition from gritty realism to CGI cartoonism the most telling. Let's review:

A New Hope: Burning Jawa bodies, rebel troopers gunned down in ship, gory demonstration of de-arming ability of light saber in Mos Eisley cantina, Leia menaced by interrogation droids
Empire Strikes Back: Luke mauled by snowbeast, loses hand to Vader, Han tortured (!) by red hot thingies, several good-natured Wookie stranglings
Return of the Jedi: Leia gets shot, Luke electrocuted for quite some time, Admiral Ackbar's chin tendrils quiver with outrage at operability of Death Star II
Phantom Menace: Bunch of zany robots lopped apart, a few Gungans presumably die somehow off camera, Darth Maul ungraphically bifurcated and falls down hole (achilles heel of all Sith)
Attack of the Clones: Padme clawed by a big cat, Obi-Wan gets a cut on his leg, Vader inadvertantly loses a hand (whoops!) and then sorta takes a nap or something, bunch of sand people killed off screen, many robots sent to trash heap in the sky, one Jedi shot by Jango Fett

All in all, what little realism one could expect from a sci fi epic has been leached out and replaced with CGI and confectioner's sugar. Attack of the Clones is better than Phantom Menace, but that sure doesn't mean it's good.

I first saw Journey to the Center of the Earth as part of a dusty collection of VHS tapes our local library would roll out on rainy Sundays for the kids (another classic was Mysterious Island). I enjoyed it then, so I decided to pick up the DVD. Not only has the film held up over time, I actually find it more entertaining now than when I was a lad. The plot, wherein an esteemed Scottish geology professor and his earnest student (Pat Boone) discover a clue that leads them to the center of the Earth, along with a rogue's gallery of other companions, is actually almost believable. I think that's probably the best that can ever be said about this sort of film, and something that is almost never said of more recent versions. Along the way naturally the intrepid explorers overcome dangers and obstacles, encounter fabulous natural wonders, and generally have a good time. The actors really make this film stand out; the special effects are still good but it's the dialogue that speeds the plot along. I still find myself swept up in their initial hunt for the entrance to the underground caverns, as well as the interactions of our heroes with the primary villian..and of course there is a fun one. The film also has a well-manicured but playful sense of humor, including a scene where our heroes desperately try in any language to communicate with the tappings of a presumed rescuer, which turns out to be a duck, and another where one love interest is horrified when she (gasp!) accidentally reveals her shapely ankles.

Also, this film has a great sequence that catapults it high into the ranking of that little-known and vastly underappreciated sub-genre: the "giant" lizard film. You know the ones I mean. They all have iguanas, typically blue-screened and made up to look like prehistoric dinosaurs of some form, which bound around the place and generally menace our off-screen actors. Look for close-up shots of "giant" lizard mouths and then listen for the screams. Ahh, it's great.

The DVD itself is fine. Some of the other reviews take issue with obscure coloring and soundtrack elements that, frankly, I don't think are even noticeable. The soundtrack is delightfully strident and yet often solemn/morbid, conveying the gradual suffocating effects of hundreds of miles of earth piled above your head as you move deeper. All in all, I think this is about as entertaining and enjoyable as you're going to get for a premise as patently absurd as walking to the center of the earth. And that, of course, is why it's such a great film.

I find it grimly ironic that I am given only 1,000 words to review a book that is thousands of pages long. The best way to characterize this book, and perhaps the series itself, would be to have a 700 page review laden with wacky "It Must Be Fantasy" words like t'angeral or Aes Sedai, or whatever else pops out when you mash your hand against the keyboard a few times. What were the other 999,999 monkeys doing that day? Such a review would also need to be filled with one-dimensional female characters that may be mild or assertive, but are always shrill, spend a lot of time with flashbacks and details like the buttons on Lord Haversham's butter-creme highlighted velvet damask afternoon undercoat and, after 59 chapters, end with a sputter. I'll try to keep it shorter.

Jordan had it once, for a book or two. It was there for all to see. Then, like Lucas, he started to slip.. began to fancy himself an authority rather than a member of the gang like the rest of us. It was our duty to read the great works he deigned to cast before us like pearls before swine, just like it is apparently his editor's duty to never make a single change out of fear of losing the precious account. And here we are.. nine books along and no closer to the end. Tolkien's crown has long since slipped from Jordan's head and is rolling, tumbleweed-esque, towards the future and, hopefully, long-lived real heir. Winter's Heart, like the series itself, collapses rapidly under its own weight and tedium, like a violet-and-mother-of-pearl brocaded hoopskirt ballgown left in a downpour. Even the Bible is less preachy, and weighs in at a slender 2 books. Save yourself.

Another good way to appreciate the aimlessness of this series is to take the last 6 books, randomly shuffle them, and read them in that random order. You will not be able to tell the difference.

What is it about Cowboy Bebop that everyone loves? It's not often the same thing, but the series has so much to offer that nearly everyone will find something. For me, it's the style. I knew little about anime and nothing about Cowboy Bebop until I caught, at random, the first episode of its early run on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. That was all it took. Cowboy Bebop is so good that you will forget it is a cartoon. I've never had that happen before or since. Part of it is that the animation itself is so refined and precise, but another part is that the storylines are compelling and downright artful. Everything, including the laconic main character Spike, moves along at its own pace in a sort of dreamlike, sunny afternoon lull, even during moments of intense, teeth-rattling violence. This is not anime for children..people die, often and graphically, there is sex, love, betrayal, and brutality. There is also humor, and, above all, an abiding sense of grace.

The film loses none of these aspects. It plays like an extended episode set somewhere around the middle of the episode series, where all the main characters have been established and have already partially come to grips with one another. That, I think, was my greatest disappointment (although obviously a relative one); I would have loved nothing more than a post-series movie following up on our favorites rather than an insert. Nonetheless, the film captures the grace and style of the shorter episodes while giving each character their due. There's a lull in the film that makes you wonder whether it was going to be a 2-3 parter and was recast into a film format, but otherwise it stands alone.

The focus of the film is a presumed-dead Martian special forces soldier incubating an experimental cellular-level of nanobots that make him immune to other violent nanobots. Those, naturally, become his weapons of choice. After a tanker truck explodes on a downtown Martian overpass, sickening and killing thousands with what turn out to be malignant nanobots, a massive bounty is offered for his head. Enter our intrepid heroes, the cast and crew of the starship Cowboy Bebop, and their great noses for a profit. Also hence arises the greatest overarching question, at least to me, of all the series.. what is Spike's morality? You have bounty hunters seeking only the highest rewards, yet inevitably they pursue the case once the hint of a reward has long since vanished..or once it proves dangerous in extreme proportion to its petty payoff. Indeed it often becomes the challenge of the thing that is its own reward, and such is the case here. Spike meets his match, Jet Black's den mothering skills are tested in the extreme, Ed and Ein...well, they keep up the good work. If you loved the series, you will get the movie. If you've never seen the series, the film is a great introduction. In either instance, you should get it.

Ok, I admit to a certain fascination with strategic space combat games. Two of my favorites continue to be Master of Orion, and its sequel. Master of Orion III (recently released) however was a real disaster.. formula over substance, a bizarre mix of uncontrolled AI and tedious micromanagement, and no replay value. Galactic Civilizations is, somehow, an exact opposite of Master Orion III despite stemming from the same basic concept. Here's a quick run-down of the best parts of this game (although there are many more). I will likely lapse into a comparison with Master of Orion III as a good example of every point this game made the right decision, but Galactic Civilizations is equally accessible to even the most casual strategic gamer.

1) Ease of play. I cannot stress this enough. I took the game out of the box for the first time, installed it, started it up, and away I went. Some of the nuances may require the manual, but everything is logically laid out and you can navigate throughout any sub menus with a simple point and click. This is the exact opposite of Master of Orion III, which delights in instantly generating a baffling maze of overlapping and arcane sub-windows.
2) Dynamic galaxies. Not only are the galaxies as generated filled with all the necessary different planets and weird space phenomena, many of those phenomena will keep appearing throughout the game. Your survey ships (used to explore weird asteroids, wormholes, and other space debris for potentially beneficial discoveries) are in constant motion. Even sectors in the center of your galaxy can suddenly sprout temporal anomalies, derelict spacecraft, and other goodies.
3) Morality counter. Throughout the course of the game you are greeted with various Emperor-level decisions you have to make. Each typically has three 'answers'..one "good," one "neutral," and one "evil". For example, your scientists may have suddenly realized a way to re-animate the dead, giving you potential access to billions of zombies. You can decide to 1) purge all knowledge, which is 'good' but costs you 500 credits, 2) store the knowledge and never use it (neutral), or 3) Let the brain-eatings commence (evil, but your soldiers get 30% stronger).
4) Turn-based. Take your time, no need to worry that the 10 minutes you spent pondering which incredibly cool research option to choose (see #5) puts you behind the eight ball.
5) Wild technology trees. Not only are the technology research trees vast, they react to your in-game decisions and morality counter. Evil empires get the option to research evil things, and so on for good ones. Unlike many strategy games where any variation in the tech trees comes from randomness, much of this one comes from you. Show a predisposition to loving evil mind control powers? Time to dig up some more. Can't get enough of pretty terraforming techs that spruce up (ahem) your planets? Dig in.
6) Smart, well-played enemies. Your computer opponents (both Major races, your primary challengers, and minor races, France-like civilizations of one or two stars that often appear later in the game) behave intelligently, and don't cheat. They won't go to war with you the turn after signing an alliance, nor randomly try to invade your most powerful planet with a single scout ship every single turn for 20 years. You can even vary the difficulty setting of _individual_ civilizations, not the game itself. So you can play against two races at "moron" intelligence, one at "normal" intelligence, and another at "genius" level all at the same time. Heck, even their racial descriptions change depending on how smart they are. Nor do they cheat at higher difficulties by getting free techs, money etc..they really are just a lot smarter in what they do.
7) Engrossing political systems. I never thought I would ever say that about a strategy game. In the Civilization games, for example, you can choose between various governments as you learn them, typically upgrading each time, or using one type for war. While in Galactic Civilizations you can also research new government types, you also have to choose a political party to be affiliated with. Each party (military, pacifist, technologist etc) gives you various racial bonuses in addition to those you apportion when you start the game. Moreover, every few years there is a short internal election (unlike those tedious voting conferences in MOOII and III) where, if you lose control of your senate, you lose some bonuses until the next election. There's also a galactic council to play around with.
8) Pre-built ships, and free-range space stations. At first, I thought not being able to design my own ships would suck. It doesn't. In fact, it's oddly liberating..as you learn new techs, you get better ships by default, speeding up the whole process (also see the morality effects on technology trees above). Also, you can use special ships to build space stations anywhere. Those stations, as you upgrade them, give bonuses in the sector they're in for everything from trade to diplomacy to battles. Layer them for even more fun.

Anyway, check this game out. You won't be disappointed.

I've always been a John Carpenter fan.. sure, his films aren't always the biggest hits, but they're inevitably well-crafted and entertaining. Moreover, they're always better than you'd think possible, given the subject matter. Big Trouble in Little China is a classic example. I'd only seen it a few times before, piecemeal and probably on USA at 2 o'clock in the morning. What a tragedy. This film is a national treasure.

Why? Everything about it is absurd..and purposefully so. Try to read the plot aloud without laughing: A mullet-wearing truck driver teams up with his Chinese-American buddy to battle ancient Chinatown demons commanded by the ethereal 2000 year old Lo Pan and rescue their respective green-eyed (would-be) girlfriends, all with the aid of local magician/tour bus driver Egg Sheng and his lazy-eyed sorcery.

Yet, somehow, it all works perfectly. Kurt Russell is a riot as Jack Burton, a bumbling and inept, yet surprisingly hardy, truck driver with a lot of buddies in Chinatown who has to take on a world of Chinese legends. His loud-mouthed bravado at all times (presumably he's intended to be a classic jerk American foreign devil) forms the basis for his irrepressible camaraderie with the other heroes in the movie. He may have no idea what he's doing, but darn it he's gonna do it anyway. Some folks may be misled (as I was by the USA Up All Night tidbits) into thinking this was some sort of cheesy martial arts film. It isn't. This is a flat-out comedy that just happens to involve a lot of swordfights, demons, and electrical discharges. Some classic examples of the typical humor drenching the film include 1) several Chinese elders and mystics sitting around a table discussing ancient curses while Jack Burton shouts at his insurance carrier about the loss of his big rig truck in the background, 2) At the start of the climactic pitched battle, Jack Burton, in a fit of adrenaline-stoked fury, fires wildly into the air with his gun and dislodges a rock from the ceiling that knocks him unconscious, 3) Jack Burton facing off against evil demonlord Lo Pan while wearing lipstick from his smooching of one of the female love interests.

And I haven't seen a film this packed with quotable comments since Predator: "Great, a six-demon bag! What's it do, Egg?" "Are you crazy? Is that what your problem is?" "... and let me drive right over him? With light coming out of his mouth?!" "Whaddya mean there's no listing? There better be, honey, 'cause I pay 'em 6 grand a year in premiums."

In short, Big Trouble in Little China is a great Saturday afternoon sort of film.. a refreshing treat that proves surprisingly satisfying by the end.

It is unsurprising to me that some people find Lawrence of Arabia boring. If you have the attention span of a hummingbird, this is not a film you will enjoy. It has no car chases, no bikini-clad supermodels, and nary a kung-fu move to be seen. Instead, all it offers is tortured respect for everything it touches. Lawrence of Arabia is a film that elevated the art of cinematic storytelling to new heights, and it shows. It is the journey, not the destination, that the viewer should focus on. In order to enjoy this film, you must make a commitment to watch it. Get comfortable, have something to drink on hand (you'll know why about halfway through), turn off the phone, and put the remote under a pillow. I've seen a lot of films, and some I've liked to varying degrees, and others I've simply been satisfied that Hollywood didn't butcher the underlying work or premise too badly in pursuit of the lowest common denominator. Lawrence of Arabia is different. It is one of those truly rare films that makes you feel grateful for having seen it, for the efforts of all those involved to craft, create, and perserve over the years just so you might have the chance to see it. It is such a fine film that its merits are obvious, and negative statements about it tend to simply reflect back on the critic.

Why? Many reasons. The actors are likewise gifted with rare talent, and superbly cast. The settings and scenes are invariably breathtaking. The plot is engrossing and entertaining without ever becoming heavy-handed. Film students will while away hours discussing everything from the Christ imagery to the undercurrents of homoeroticism, but they do that with every film. I suggest you simply kick back and enjoy an excellent, time-honored epic about a stranger in a strange land. It is a harrowing, draining journey, but one you will not regret.

Morrowind is basically a world. If you can think of something you'd like to do in Morrowind, chances are there's a way to do it. Jump from a rain barrel to a rooftop to escape pursuing guards. Poke around in the bushes outside of town and discover a hidden crypt filled with ghouls. Paddle out into the ocean, fire an arrow at a giant jellyfish, and high-tail it back into town so the militia will protect you. There is a lot of fun to be had in this entirely 3-D world. That said, of course, there are some rather serious bugs that still haven't been corrected.

1) The most egregious I've encountered is the disappearing item bug. Basically things in your inventory simply vanish. Sometimes it's so minor you never notice. Other times, it's a gem worth 15,000 gold. Then, you notice. At first I just assumed my naive 20th level guy was just a constant victim of pickpockets. Then the suit of chainmail he was _wearing_ simply vanished while he was walking down the middle of an empty road. I reversed course back into town and tried to buy another one from the local guard. Since I had joined the Imperial Legion, no one would talk to me since I was now "out of uniform." Finally I found a non-Legion shop that carried Legion chainmail, bought a suit, and put it on. The game crashed. Reloaded, tried again. Game crashed again. Finally I just gave up on either being in the Legion, or ever having a Legionnaire NPC ever talk to me again (still out of uniform).

2) Ranged combat is bizarre. For anyone used to 1st person shooters, using a bow and arrow and crosshairs to peg a target shouldn't be too challenging, but it still requires some coordination and timing, particularly when that target is trying to sneak up and kill you. However, it's not enough to simply line up something with your bow and shoot it. You have to ALSO "hit" it with your stats. So if your character is bad with a bow, you can fire longbow arrows directly through people's heads on screen and not hit them. Doesn't matter how big and lumbering the target is, if your stats say you miss, you miss, even if you see that arrow go right through its chest.

3) If you start the game and just barter with the first shopkeeper you find for about an hour, you'll soon be able to turn a huge profit just selling him back the items you buy from him. So whenever you need money, you can just swap the same expensive item back and forth a few times to clean out the house. Then you can use the money to just train yourself up levels.

4) Unpredictable NPCs. A lot of the time, fairly innocent things will turn NPCs aggressive. On the plus side, the guards will usually let you go with a minor fee/bribe, but it can get annoying fast, particularly when all the NPCs are "linked" so that if you [irritate] one, someone on the other side of town somehow magically senses it and runs over with their axe. A classic example is opening a chest 3 floors above any NPC, then heading downstairs into a swirling pack of angry people. Then when you kill them all, you're the bad guy, heh.

All in all, it's a visually stunning game that can prove to be very frustrating in play. I find I can only take it for an hour or two at a time.