The Couch Potato Report - September 1st, 2007
This week The Couch Potato Report peels six figures, history bites, heroes and our FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD concludes.
Up first this week is the Canadian film SIX FIGURES.
Set in Calgary, SIX FIGURES introduces us to Warner. He is 35, married, the father of two children, and has a career that isn't going well.
Warner works hard at his job, and loves his family, but while he and his wife are looking for an affordable house to buy, he can't help but think that they should be further along in life by now.
Warner's wife Claire loves him so much that she ignores her Mother's advice that he is a loser, just like her father was.
As the film goes on, we see Warner struggle at his job, while Claire gets a raise and a promotion....and just when they finally find a house they are interested in, and can afford, Warner's boss tells him that maybe he shouldn't buy a house just yet.
Warner is 35, married with a wife who loves him, two children he adores, but he thinks that his life isn't going well.
But then it gets even worse. Claire is violetly attacked and left for dead, and the people closest to the couple suspect that Warner's general frustration with life may be to blame.
Since he is the prime suspect, the only suspect in fact, Warner is arrested and put in jail for 24 hours.
And after he gets out, his accounts are frozen, he loses his job, and his own parents aren't even sure that he's innocent.
SIX FIGURES is the type of film that wants to be a low concept thriller, and at times I will admit that it is interesting. Mostly, however, it is just a very, very slow film that isn't all that thrilling.
In fact, there is segment of the movie that comes at the one-hour-twenty-minute mark where absolutely nothing happens for five straight minutes. No action, no dialgue...nothing!
But that five minutes, or the movie's very slow pace aren't the main faults with the film.
No, the primary reason why SIX FIGURES isn't something I can fully recommend to you is that fact that it has a fatal flaw.
A flaw that prevents it from having any logical conclusion, a flaw that erases any hope of a conclusion that makes any sense....a flaw that I can't even discuss, because if I do it will ruin any suspense the film does possess, should you choose to watch it.
No, I won't tell you what the film's fatal flaw is, but I will tell you that I mentioned the fatal flaw just a few sentences ago.
SIX FIGURES wants to be the type of film that you'll talk about and dissect after it is over. But you won't do that. You may spend a few minutes making up your own mind about what you think happened, but it isn't good enough to compell you to discuss it with anyone.
SIX FIGURES isn't great, but it does have a few interesting moments.
Plus, the actress who plays Claire - Caroline Cave from THE L WORD - and Brooklynn Proulx, the young actress who plays the couple's daughter, are very good in the film.
Now, let me be honest, if SIX FIGURES wasn't a Canadian film, I probably would tell you that it is a waste of your time...but since it is Canadian, I happily cut it some slack, and you should too.
They even reference Saskatchewan in it!
Search it out and give it a watch! Support Canadian films!!
Up next this week is the three-DVD set for series five of the TV show HISTORY BITES.
HISTORY BITES was a Canadian sketch comedy show that ran from 1998-2003.
Each episode of the series looked at what might have been on television had the medium had been around for the last 5,000 years of human history.
Typically, a significant historical event was chosen and mock news, sports and entertainment programming was created around it.
For instance, the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims is done as a parody of ALL IN THE FAMILY, and renamed ALL IN THE PILGRIM FAMILY.
Each episode also includes several segments of the great Rick Green - of The Frantics!! - giving historical background of the episode's chosen era.
HISTORY BITES frequently goes from one comedy sketch to another, and often returns to running skits, as it is meant to represent a channel-surfing viewer who never watches anything for more than a few minutes at a time.
That was a great impression of ANNIE HALL-era Woody Allen, and the cast of HISTORY BITES all do great impressions, and the show is well researched and well-written, but as a whole, the show is hit and miss.
Some of it is exceptionally entertaining, while other parts aren't very good at all.
Plus, for a Canadian show, there was never much Canadian history included on the show...in fact, with the exception of The War Of 1812, there isn't much about our home and native land on this 15 episode set.
Still, if you have never seen it, HISTORY BITES is very worthy of your time...even if it is hit and miss.
Perhaps what was a miss for me, will be a hit for you. And when it is a hit, it is very, very funny.
HISTORY BITES - THE COMPLETE SERIES 5 is now available on DVD, and so is SEASON ONE of HEROES, the spectacular TV show that debuted last season about some ordinary people who discover that they have extraordinary abilities.
During the last television season, many of the anthology shows that had been entertaining us, and confusing us weren't as good as they had been. LOST and 24, to just pick on two, had awful years...but luckily there was a show that filled in the gap and gave action and adventure fans a weekly dose of confusion, an answer here and there, some great writing and very interesting characters.
That show...yes...was HEROES, the most talked-about television show of the 2006-2007 season.
The HEROES, who "thought they were like everyone else... until they realized they have incredible abilities", soon realized that they have a role in preventing a catastrophe and saving humankind.
HEROES tells it's story like a comic books with short, multi-episode story arcs that build upon a larger, more encompassing storyline.
But most importantly, the show doesn't just tease and tease and tease. It makes you ask questions, and then from time to time, it gives you answers.
And now, with the debut of Season Two coming in about four weeks on Monday, September 24th, SEASON ONE is available on DVD in a superb 7 disc Box Set full of special features, including cast commentaries, deleted scenes, and an extended version of the Pilot episode that shows where the series might have gone.
HEROES is a spectacular show, even if you don't usually watch science-fiction or fantasy based shows. The stories and plots are all very well-written, and the actors all make their characters seem like believeable people.
I highly recommend it.
And here's hoping that Season Two, and the upcoming seasons of LOST and 24 are all as good as Season One of HEROES!
Finally this week, when the Summer Movie Season began with the opening of SPIDER-MAN 3 on May 4th, the action filled, very loud, check-your-brain-at-the-door summer movie season began.
With the Labour Day upon us, that season has ended with box-office sales hitting a record $4 billion, surpassing the industry's previous high established in 2004.
Each week during the summer movie season I have been telling you about at least one current release on DVD that you'll need your brain to enjoy.
Welcome to the 18th and final entry in the FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD.
Our Festival continues with the superb Academy Award nominated Danish film AFTER THE WEDDING.
I can't think of a better way to end than with this movie. It is an exceptionally interesting and entertaining film!
Mads Mikkelsen, who played the villain in the most recent James Bond film, is a very human man named Jacob.
He is a Danish emigrant running an orphanage in India.
With the orphanage facing closure due to financial pressures, he returns to Denmark seeking funding from Jorgen, a multi-millionaire who will only give him the money if he goes there to get it.
Since their meetings will take a few days and since Jacob has no other engagements, Jorgen invites him to be a guest at the wedding of his daughter.
When he arrives at the church for the ceremony, Jacob discovers that Anna's mother and Jorgen's wife is an old flame.
And that's only the first of several startling revelations that will turn Jacob's short business trip into a life-changing experience.
When I watched AFTER THE WEDDING I repeatedly wanted to skip chapters so I could see how it ended. I was that curious.
Luckily I did not because what played out in front of me was a film full of tension, betrayal, and interesting people.
Like I said, I can't think of a better way to end thsi summer's FOREIGN FILM FESTIVAL ON DVD than with this movie.
Search it out, AFTER THE WEDDING is an exceptionally interesting and entertaining film!
And don't worry, I will continue to talk about Foreign Films here on CBC radio whenever there are titles available.
So, let me recap - the interesting and entertaining AFTER THE WEDDING, SEASON ONE of the great TV show HEROES, the hit and miss, but still entertaining Canadian TV show HISTORY BITES and the Canadian film SIX FIGURES, a movie that is worth seeing, even with it's fatal flaw, are all available now on DVD.
Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report
To some September of 1972 featured the greatest goal in Canadian sports history. To other, including me, that goal came in September of 1987. Next week, we will relive that goal, and much more with CANADA CUP '87 - THE FINAL SERIES.
Also next week, with the new TV season starting soon, I will tell you about the new DVD box sets that are available for THE OFFICE, 30 ROCK, THE BLACK DONNELLYS, WEEDS and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS.
Plus, the one-of-a-kind eighties show VOYAGERS! is also now available on DVD!
So, to recap, next week I will cover 20 hockey games, from twenty years ago, and over 55 hours of television shows…and I will do it all in 12 minutes!
I'm Dan Reynish. I'll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.
For now, that's this week's COUCH POTATO REPORT.
Enjoy the movies and I'll see you back here next time on The Couch!
Canadian City Featured In 'Heroes' Storyline
A "major city" in Canada will be part of the story line in the new season of Heroes.
Tim Kring, the creator of the popular TV series which airs on Global and NBC, made the announcement today through a pre-taped video message that was played to fans at a public gathering in Toronto.
"Actually, the story line is going to take us to a certain part of Canada," Kring said.
"Obviously, we're going to shoot it here in L.A. But the story line will take us to a major city in Canada."
Jeph Loeb, the executive producer of Heroes, has been in Toronto for the past two days, along with cast members Zachary Quinto (Sylar), James Kyson Lee (Ando), Noah Gray-Cabey (Micah) and newcomer Dania Ramirez (Maya).
"Well, if (Kring) didn't reveal (specifically which Canadian city it's going to be), then I can't do that yet," Loeb said. "But it is a major metropolis, and it actually is important.
"It's one of the many mysteries that you'll have."
The new season of Heroes debuts on Sept. 24.
New Young CD To Be Bundled With 'Archives' Sampler
In the surest sign yet that Neil Young's decades-in-the-works "Archives" boxed set is nearing release, a bonus CD featuring a track from the project will be bundled with copies of his next studio effort, "Chrome Dreams II," due Oct. 16 via Reprise.
According to Young's Web site, select retail outlets will have the bonus CDs with their own individual track from "Live at the Riverboat," which chronicles a week's worth of concerts from the Toronto shortly after Buffalo Springfield split. "It is one of [Young's] earliest known live recordings," the site says.
As previously reported, the first volume of "Archives," expected Feb. 18, 2008, will also include the previously released concert sets "Live at the Fillmore East" and "Live at Massey Hall." The remainder will feature material cut with Young's early Canadian band the Squires, recordings from the period during which he lived in Topanga Canyon, Calif., and scores of previously unreleased studio tracks.
Young is expected to tour in October, but for now, his only confirmed dates are next weekend at Farm Aid in New York and his annual Bridge School Benefit, to be held outside San Francisco on Oct. 27-28.
R.E.M. Reluctant To Pin Down New Album Direction
R.E.M. is "two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through" its next album, according to the group's Mike Mills, which means it's on target for a 2008 release, most likely some time in the spring.
"We've got another three weeks of recording and singing and what little overdubbing we're gonna do," Mills tells Billboard.com. "Michael's got a bunch of singing and I've got some backgrounds to do, and we've got a couple songs we hope Michael will finish. And then after the next three weeks or so is the mixing phase."
Mills' comment that "there isn't a whole lot of overdubbing on this record" supports reports -- as well as aural evidence from recent "working rehearsal" shows at Dublin's Olympia theater -- that it will be a guitar-dominated, hard-rocking record. For now, however, Mills says that he, Stipe and Peter Buck "made an agreement we weren't going to say what it is or not because we don't want to have expectations out there in any direction. But, of course, you can go on YouTube and listen to some of the Dublin shows and get a pretty good idea of where we're going."
Those concerts, he adds, did have a positive impact on the new material. "They did all the things we wanted in terms of not only generating excitement for the record but also helped us, I think, to make a better record," Mills says. "It just really kicked us into a higher gear."
Mills says working with producer Garret "Jacknife" Lee has been "fantastic. He's just what we needed at this stage of our career. He's very willing to experiment. He keeps things loose. It's a fun process; he just realizes this is something we're all lucky to be able to do, and we're all enjoying it as much as possible." R.E.M. has been recording with touring members Bill Rieflin and Scott McCaughey, but Ken Stringfellow hasn't been involved, Mills says, because "we're not using very many keyboards, and what we're using I do."
R.E.M. is hoping that its next release, the CD/DVD concert package "R.E.M. Live" from a 2005 show at Dublin's Point Theatre, will also provide "a springboard" for the new album. Mills says of the Oct. 16 Warner Bros. release, "it's actually so good that it's gonna whet people's appetite. It's nice to show people that we're still out here doing great work.
Britney Spears says "Gimme More" in new song
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Troubled pop star Britney Spears has released her first new song in years on the Web, a single called "Gimme More" that is expected to hit radio airwaves as early as next week.
The song was officially released late on Thursday on the Web site of New York radio station Z100, and by Friday it could be heard on YouTube.
Music industry magazine Billboard said the single is expected to get its first radio play next week, and several other media reports said Spears could have a new album out in early November.
A spokeswoman for Jive Records, Spears' label, was not immediately available for comment.
Spears, 25, is attempting to resurrect her flagging career, and the new single could be the first salvo in a media blitz. Rumors have been rampant that she will perform at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas on September 9, and for months she has been saying she is at work on a new album.
The singer has become a major subject for tabloid coverage for public behavior that has included being photographed with no underwear under her miniskirts, shaving her head bald, attacking paparazzi with an umbrella and performing in local nightclubs where she was accused of lip-syncing songs.
Earlier this year, she checked into a rehabilitation facility in Malibu, California, and more recently her divorce from second husband Kevin Federline was finalized. The pair remain embroiled in a bitter custody battle over their two sons.
Back in the early 2000s, Spears was a top-selling artist. Her records had sold more than 70 million units, and in 2002 she was ranked as the most powerful celebrity in the world by Forbes magazine.
Spears' first album was 1999 CD "...Baby One More Time," which featured hit songs like "Sometimes." Her most recent album of original music was 2003's "In the Zone."
Princes remember Diana as loving mother
LONDON - Princess Diana should be remembered as a loving, down-to-earth mother, Prince Harry said Friday at a memorial service where a bishop urged an end to a decade of bitterness over her death and her broken marriage.
The service organized by Prince William and Prince Harry climaxed a week of recalling Diana's life and re-fighting old battles, albeit in a far lower key than the emotional tidal wave that swept over Britain following her death 10 years ago.
In his eulogy, Harry said it was important "that we remember our mother as she would wish to be remembered, as she was: fun-loving, generous, down to earth and entirely genuine."
The service went off with typical royal dignity, following published criticism from one of Diana's friends that persuaded Prince Charles' second wife, Camilla, to abandon plans of attending. To the princess, her close friends and legions of Dianaphiles, Camilla was the other woman who destroyed the marriage.
Richard Chartres, the bishop of London, called for an end to the sniping.
"Still 10 years after her tragic death there are regular reports of 'fury' at this or that incident and the princess's memory is used for scoring points. Let it end here," Chartres said.
"Let this service mark the point at which we let her rest in peace and dwell on her memory with thanksgiving and compassion."
That may be wishful thinking.
Diana's face still sells magazines and newspapers, and her story inspires an unending stream of books.
A formal inquest into her death opens later this year. Mohamed al Fayed, whose son died with Diana in the car crash in Paris, has deployed a high-paid legal team to argue his belief that the couple were the victims of an Establishment conspiracy led by the queen's husband, Prince Philip.
A poll commissioned by Channel 4 television found that 25 percent of the public believes Diana was murdered. The telephone poll of 1,016 adults conducted this week had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Diana's admirers, many of them suspicious of the cause of her death and resentful of Charles, tied bouquets, poems and portraits to the gates of Kensington Palace, her former home.
For Harry and his older brother, William, it was a simple tribute to an adored mother.
"To us, just two loving children, she was quite simply the best mother in the world," Harry said.
"When she was alive, we completely took for granted her unrivaled love of life, laughter, fun and folly. She was our guardian, friend and protector. She never once allowed her unfaltering love for us to go unspoken or undemonstrated."
Harry, who was 12 when Diana died, said losing a parent at such a tender age "is indescribably shocking and sad."
Hundreds of people gathered outside the chapel — a smaller crowd than the masses that lined the route of Diana's funeral procession to Westminster Abbey.
"She reached our lives deeply, even in America. She brought life to the palace and warmth, and that's what the monarchy needed," said Arlene Fitch, 54, of Boston.
Fitch's sister, Marie Schofield, 46, from Florida, said Diana "got married the same year as me, she had children the same year as me and, as her boys have grown up, they have done just the same kind of things as our boys would do."
Eileen Neathey, 56, of London, recalled a chance encounter with Diana at a hospital, where Neathey's mother was a patient.
"I had been up all night and was very upset, and when I bumped into Diana, I burst into tears," Neathey said outside Kensington Palace. "She put her arm round me and comforted me — that's the way she was."
John Loughrey, 52, painted "Diana" on his forehead and "the truth?" on his cheek. "We must get to the bottom of how she died," he said.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were among the 500 people in the chapel. Prince Edward, Charles' younger brother, and his sister, Princess Anne, also were there, as were Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former prime ministers John Major and Tony Blair, and representatives of 110 charities Diana supported.
Al Fayed observed his own two minutes of silence at Harrods, his department store, an hour before the memorial service. His daughter, Camilla al Fayed, attended the royal memorial.
In the past, the royal family had refrained from any public remembrance of the anniversary of the princess' death.
This year, however, William and Harry took the lead in organizing the memorial service, as well as a rock concert on Diana's birthday, July 1, which drew 70,000 paying fans.
The Rev. Frank Gelli, who has led an informal service outside Kensington Palace every year, said Friday's probably would be the last.
"It would be good if the princess was allowed to rest," he said.