Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****

Much like the terrific Traffik before it (later turned into Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning Traffic), State of Play is the latest miniseries from the UK that will shortly be made into a feature stateside (starring Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck). The miniseries casts a jaundiced eye at politics and journalism, two professions at least as disgraced as the drug trade.

The plot is set up with a lean but mesmerizing ferocity: a young black teenager is chased and shot in cold blood while the researcher - and illicit lover, we find out shortly - of a rising-star Member of Parliament (played by David Morrissey) is found under a train. What follows takes the shape of a newspaper's investigation into the two deaths and all the muckraking that entails. The series rewards close viewing as minor characters amble in and shortly become the focus for the run of show.

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Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***½

The show that Simpsons creator Matt Groening followed that huge hit with, Futurama didn't have the same ratings success as its famous cousin, but developed a large and loyal cult following. Unfortunately, it was doomed as another high quality comedy that Fox shifted around confusingly for four seasons, showing less patience than it did with the Simpsons, only to, as with Family Guy (which I'm much less of a fan of, but it certainly has a huge following), realize they blew it and brought a cult favorite back. Bender's Big Score is the first of what will be several new feature-length Futurama episodes. And fans can breathe a sigh of relief: even if it stumbles about a few times -- blame it on writers rust after the four year layover (which the opening sequence cleverly references, along with a well-deserved, thinly-veiled smackback at Fox itself) -- in many ways it's as if they'd never left. Good news everyone: It has roughly the same amount of laughs as you'd find if you watched three solid episodes of the show back to back.

The film stars, yes, Bender the wise-ass robot, who becomes captive to a virus as part of a hostile takeover by scammer aliens (who use spam to fool the Planet Express company's gullible employees). After gaining access to a secret code that allows them to travel through time -- Fry has the time travel secret with the power to destroy the universe written in binary code tattooed on his ass, and don't ask, just enjoy! -- the evil scammers use Bender to do their bidding, including the theft of all the valuable objects in human history. Time travel paradox gags have been used on the show before, and they come close here to one time travel paradox too many, but they find the right pace as the show goes along, using the main plot to cleverly launch a few side stories that all end up connecting at the end. This stretched out episode does have more than its fair share of butt and dick jokes, though admittedly many of them are genuinely funny. And that's always been one of the charms of Futurama: jokes that only PhDs in math could come up with (or even understand) mix with sight gags and crude humor for the sophomoronic in all of us.

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Posted by at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****½

First shown in 1997 but never seen on American television nor available on video until now, A Dance To The Music Of Time offers what seem to me the most effortlessly entertaining characters, conversations and story that may ever have appeared in a miniseries. Lavish praise, but these four discs--totaling around 7 hours of time--scale the heights in terms of providing a literate, ironic view of upper-class England over several decades. That this is due to the series of novels by Anthony Powell, from which Hugh Whitemore adapted his simply amazing script, is beyond question. But putting it all together as elegantly, speedily and bracingly as Whitmore manages is a major accomplishment. Over the decades this journeyman writer has given us many fine pieces, winning BAFTA, WGA and Emmy awards in the process. Remember 84 Charing Cross Road, Return of the Soldier, Utz, Pack of Lies, Breaking the Code (he wrote the play), The Gathering Storm, My House in Umbria--to name but a few? This prolific gentleman is pretty much the "adapter" nonpareil for our time.

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Reviewer: Dylan de Thomas
Rating (out of 5): ****½

With Tony Blair stepping down as the long-time Prime Minister of Great Britain and his replacement, Gordon Brown, spending the weekend with W. at Camp David, I thought it would be a good time to recommend the excellent House of Cards trilogy of miniseries, starring veteran British actor Ian Richardson as the fictional Prime Minister Francis Urquhart.

House of Cards, the first of the three series (the other two are To Play the King and The Final Cut), with its perfect blend of Macbeth and Richard III, of humor and drama, is the best--though once you start watching, stopping is hardly an option. The most obvious influence on the character is the aforementioned Richard, with his gleeful, cool, perfectly-reasoned badness and regular catchy audience-addressing. One halfway expects Urquhart to start speaking of his winter of discontent at any moment.

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Posted by at 3:54 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

The most obvious reason to rent the first season of Chancer series (Discs 1-4, Episodes 1-13, each approximately 50 minutes) is to watch the wonderful Clive Owen when he was only 25 (he'll be 44 in October). Filming began in 1989 and the series was shown in the U.K. over the 1990-91 seasons. When I first watched this superb sample of British TV (around 1992, as I recall), it was considered far too racy for prime time and had to be shown at midnight on one of our lesser PBS Stations in the New York City area. It also moved faster and contained more characters, themes and plot elements than I had encountered at that point in my middle-age life. Bracing as all get out, it left me breathless and eager to get to the next episode. Yes, times and mores have changed, and you can't go home again. But if Chancer now seems to move at about the same pace as your typical TV show, the good news is that it still holds up surprisingly well.

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Posted by at 2:53 PM | Permalink

Reviewer: GC Staff
Rating (out of 5): *** bones

This is one of those discs you feel guilty for laughing to the point of convulsions - sketches starring a derisive canine puppet speaking in a French accent? - but Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, spun off from SNL and Conan O'Brien, and spawned by Robert Smigel, will have you doing just that. From his uproariously bawdy appearance crashing the Westminster Dog Show to his irreverent cameo on Hollywood Squares, Triumph leaves no rear hindquarters unsniffed. Unless you don't like pooches insulting pop culture icons like Jon Bon Jovi (who took it in good humor) and the Pets.com sock puppet. Then this will be a great disc... for you to poop on!

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Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***

My Family and Other Animals is a delightful made-for-British telly movie based on Gerald Durrell's memoirs that can only be faulted for being too short. Starring the always resplendent Imelda Staunton as the matriarch of an eccentric brood, the youngest of which (Gerald, played by Eugene Simon) has a passion bordering on obsession for critters - setting up his future as a famed biologist. Set mostly in Corfu during WWII, where the family holes up in various ramshackle mansions, the film is charming and full of unexpected pleasures, as well as a fine cast both human and animal.

Posted by at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)