The Couch Potato Report - November 3rd, 2007
This week The Couch Potato Report peels a DVD box set that features some unique parts of our country, and four other new releases.
Up first this week is the two-disc DVD box set for a five-part CBC television series that I thought was just fascinating!
That series is called GEOLOGIC JOURNEY and it takes a look at the vast, wild beauty that we call Canada.
GEOLOGIC JOURNEY takes us from coast to coast to coast as it focuses on the science and study of the solid matter that constitutes the Earth.
The series takes us through The Rockies, The Canadian Shield, The Great Lakes, The Appalachians and The Atlantic Coast.
It shows us the beauty of these regions today, and offers some incredible stories about the past.
GEOLOGIC JOURNEY features insightful narration from Dr. David Suzuki and incredible visuals that allows us to go above, and below the ground, lakes and falls that make up our nation.
At times GEOLOGIC JOURNEY does get a little technical, and during those times you'd have to be a scientist or a paleantologist to understand what is being said by the scientists and paleantologists on screen.
But once the camera begins to feature the orange, black, grey, brown and green rocks of the Great Lakes Region, and takes us on helicopter rides through the Rocky Mountains and Niagara Falls, the beauty that is Canada will win you over and forget the rock talk.
I enjoyed GEOLOGIC JOURNEY, and I highly recommend it!!
Up next this week is TALK TO ME is a film - based on the true story - of Petey Greene, an ex-con who became a popular talk show host and community activist, in the late sixties and early seventies, and Dewey Hughes, his friend and manager.
If you have ever heard an interview with the two men, or read their story, you would think - as I did - that a great movie was in the offing.
Petey was charasmatic, explosive and he didn't just talk the talk, he walked the walk.
And with Dewey's reluctant help, Petey became the voice and conscience for Black Americans.
With it's interesting true-life story, and acting greats Don Cheadle as Petey and Chiwetel Ejiofor as Dewey giving incredible period performances, TALK TO ME could have been one of the year's best films.
Instead, the filmmakers have taken this engaging story and produced a film that is boring.
I really wanted to like TALK TO ME, especially since it is about a radio personality, but in the end I didn't, and so I don't recommend it to you.
BUT, I do suggest you check out Petey Green's incredible autobiography "Laugh If You Like, Ain't a Damn Thing Funny."
Finally this week, I have three releases for you. Two of which that offer some entertainment value, and one that I didn't care for at all.
I'll save the worst for last, first is MEET THE ROBINSONS an animated film from Walt Disney about a young inventor.
In the film we meet Lewis, a brilliant orphan who wants to know who his mother is, so he invents a time machine. Eventually he heads to the future, and meets a unique family of people, and a mysterious man in a bowler hat.
MEET THE ROBINSONS is close to being very entertaining. It has some great dialogue, unique characters and references.
But in the end, it just wasn't a film I loved. Youngers boys might love it, I only liked MEET THE ROBINSONS.
I used to love the TV show ENTOURAGE, as I have mentioned several times in this forum, but once SEASON THREE, PART TWO started to air, my love for this once great show turned to like.
Another great show has fallen!
Yes, SEASON THREE, PART TWO of ENTOURAGE still features the latest adventures of Vince, E, Turtle and Johnny Drama, but the show is no longer as much fun as it used to be.
We used to live vicariously through this Hollywood star and his friends from Queen's Boulevard, but their latest escapades aren't as enjoyable as their past ones.
This part of SEASON THREE just got way too dramatic, and the boys spend too much apart. When they are together, and when they are with Vince's agent Ari, then the magic happens.
Separated...well...I still like ENTOURAGE, more importantly, I still like these characters, and I will follow them, and their series wherever it goes, but I hope to get the old party hardy Vince, E, Turtle and Johnny Drama back.
I like to live vicariously through them!!
Finally this week is the unfunny comedy LICENSE TO WED.
Normally, when a movie is as bad as this one is, I wouldn't even bother to review it...but in this case, I must include it, so you skip it!
LICENSE TO WED features the great Mandy Moore, John Krasinski from TV's THE OFFICE and Robin Williams, in another one of those awful, over the top performances he has specialized in lately.
Moore and Krasinski are a young couple who want to get married, but before they say I do, Williams Reverend Frank has to say okay.
As you might expect, LICENSE TO WED puts it's young couple through the paces, and makes them question why they even loved each other in the first place, all while Williams mugs, riffs and says line after line of unfunny dialgue.
I admit it, the commercials and the premise sound funny, and very entertaining, but the end result is not.
Great cast, fantastic premise, awful movie!! Skip it, ignore it, just walk away!
Just walk away!
The awful LICENSE TO WED, the okay, but could have been better ENTOURAGE - SEASON THREE, PART TWO, MEET THE ROBINSONS and TALK TO ME and the superbly entertaining GEOLOGIC JOURNEY are all available now on DVD.
Coming up on the next Couch Potato Report
Before I take off on a week's vacation, I will have six new releases to tell you about, including Michael Moore's SICKO, a film that will make you feel good about health care in this country, maybe even if you are still on a waiting list.
Also next week, the foreign film THE BOTHERSOME MAN will get you thinking; the beloved nineties TV series MY SO CALLED LIFE debuts on DVD along with THE COMPLETE SIXTH SEASON of the SCRUBS.
RATATOUILLE is the latest animated film from PIXAR and THE PIXAR SHORT FILMS COLLECTION - VOLUME 1 gives us a look at how the studio got it's start.
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!
Hollywood writers call Monday strike
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The union representing U.S. screenwriters called for a strike against film and TV studios starting Monday in a move giving negotiators one last weekend to reach a contract deal or shatter 20 years of Hollywood labor peace.
The strike deadline was issued on Friday, a day after a three-year contract covering the 12,000-member Writers Guild of America expired, and it follows months of talks that deadlocked over the union's demands for a greater share of DVD and Internet revenues.
Both sides have accused the other of stonewalling and refusing to budge from unreasonable proposals.
The union's negotiating panel unanimously urged a walkout during a boisterous membership meeting Thursday night, and the Writers Guild's governing board voted to ratify that recommendation.
No further contract talks were immediately scheduled, but union leaders said at a news conference there was still time to avoid a confrontation that, if prolonged, could cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues and wages.
"We have 48 hours, and what we really want to do is negotiate," said John Bowman, chairman of the union's negotiating committee. He said that while reluctant to go on strike, the Writers Guild felt it had to act decisively.
"We have to inflict as much damage as quickly as possible in order to get this thing over," Bowman said.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the bargaining arm of the studios, offered only a brief, terse statement by group president Nick Counter.
"We are very disappointed with their press conference and the action they took," he said, accusing union leaders of "falsehoods, misstatements and inaccuracies."
He added, "We'll respond at an appropriate time."
Union officials said the strike would begin at 3:01 a.m. EST and picket lines would go up in Los Angeles and New York City.
$1 BILLION AT RISK
The last major Hollywood strike was a Writers Guild walkout in 1988 that lasted 22 weeks, delayed the start of the fall TV season and cost the industry an estimated $500 million. Los Angeles economist Jack Kyser said a strike of the same duration today could result in at least $1 billion in economic losses.
Movie and TV audiences would notice little impact at first. The screenplay pipeline of the film studios is well-stocked through 2008. And producers of prime-time sitcoms and dramas are said to have stockpiled enough advance episodes to keep their shows on the air until January or February.
But late-night talks shows will go off the air almost immediately since they rely on a daily supply of topical jokes. On his CBS show on Thursday, David Letterman described the producers as "cowards, cutthroats and weasels."
Prime-time schedules will start filling up with more reruns and game shows after the networks have burned through fresh episodes. The new shows fighting to hold viewers' attention in the first few weeks of the new season face a grim future if they have to leave the schedule for an extended period.
Negotiations on a new writers contract began in July and the two sides have remained far apart. They brought in a federal mediator this week to try to break the deadlock on the key issue issues of compensating writers for the reuse of their work in various digital formats.
The studios have said union demands for higher residuals on DVDs and Internet downloads would stifle growth at a time of rising production costs, tighter profits and piracy. They insist digital distribution of movies and TV remains largely experimental or promotional and new media is just developing.
The union accuses studios of pleading poverty and argues that writers have never gotten a fair deal on lucrative DVDs. They also see more film and TV migrating toward the Web and wireless platforms and want a bigger share of that revenue.