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10.30.05 by Widge @ 11:50 pm Here's yer DVD goodness...     TV DVD of the Week: 21 Jump Street: The Complete Third Season. For those Johnny Depp fiends (and you know who you are), Anchor Bay rides to the rescue with this release of the third season of the series, featuring all twenty episodes spread across six discs. Yes, they're cops, but young looking so that they can get into the places where old fogies like Dennis Franz could not go. Thank creators Stephen J. Cannell and Patrick Hasburgh next time you feel that lust coming on. Again, you know who you are. (Buy it) DVD of the Week: Clueless. Ten years afterwards, this retelling of Jane Austen's Emma remains of such high quality that many will take it and Batman and Robin and call Alicia Silverstone even. This new "Whatever" edition hits from Paramount and sports a retrospective, a talk with director Amy Heckerling, a fashion featurette, a tutorial on the "Suck n Blow" game, a driving featurette, stories from the cast and crew, and more. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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10.30.05 by Widge @ 10:23 pm Each weekend, Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey...if you have something you want to recommend--whatever it is--drop us a line. Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we? Okay, books and music first...   Audiobook of the Week: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, performed by Stefan Rudnicki. You might remember Jonathan Pryce as Mr. Dark in the decent Disney movie adaptation. However, get acquainted with the source material if you haven't already. It's the perfect weekend to do so, after all. This Blackstone Audio release not only comes unabridged but has a sweet bonus: the short story "A Sound of Thunder," the adaptation of which was recently ignored at the box office. Again, go back to the source and enjoy. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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10.23.05 by Widge @ 11:48 pm Here's yer DVD goodness...      TV DVD of the Week: Roseanne: The Complete First Season. I'm not a big fan of Roseanne. I've never seen her on her own being, you know, funny. So I avoided this show like the plague when it originally aired. That shows you how much I'm not a fan of the woman, since we all know John Goodman is a genius. But hey, I've actually seen a few episodes now that Anchor Bay has released these first season's worth of twenty-three episodes, and I'll be damned if the thing isn't actually pretty good. Who knew? You also get bloopers, interviews with Roseanne and Goodman, a highlight reel, and other tidbits. (Buy it) DVD of the Week: Batman Begins. Sure I was scared in the months leading up to this film. After Burton and Schumacher (especially Schumacher), who wouldn't be? But director Nolan along with an incredible cast and--thank God--an excellent script laid my fears to rest nicely. And now, Warner Brothers has kicked your direction a massive two-disc deluxe edition. No commentary, but there's featurettes and docus out the yin yang, covering the making of, the casting, the creation of the new Batmobile, the sets, the effects and more. Comes with a comic book that has the origins of the character and the film for those three of you who haven't read such tales. A worthy set to a very worthy spandex film. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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10.23.05 by Widge @ 9:27 pm Each weekend, Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey...if you have something you want to recommend--whatever it is--drop us a line. Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we? Okay, books and music first...    Book of the Week: A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun: The Autobiography of a Career Criminal by Razor Smith. Smith is exactly what the title and his name would imply. An armed felon who has spent his life creating mayhem, not only on the victims of his crimes but also on his family. Gang warfare, robbing banks, slashing folks with his namesake--this isn't your typical dimestore crime memoir that's been sanitized. This is straight from the horse's mouth and as harsh as you might imagine. This hits from Chicago Review Press. (Buy it) Audiobook of the Week: Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell. Powell is a blogger "made good," who decided to tackle the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. All of them. Hence the 524 number in the title. And she decided to make them all in one year. Hence the 365 number as well. No matter how obscure the ingredient or how difficult the recipe, she decided to hit them all. Madness? Ah, but the good kind of madness. This hits in abridged CD form by Time Warner Audio. (Buy it) CD Boxed Set of the Week: Velvet Underground Chronicles. For those that have music collections deficient of a particular band, these Universal Music Chronicles boxed sets are a quick way to get up to speed. Take this for instance: you get three albums in one...Velvet Underground & Nico, White Light/White Heat, and The Velvet Underground. So for no frills catching up, it's the ticket. Hardcore fans, scoff at the stragglers. (Buy it)     CD of the Week: One Night Stand: Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963. RCA releases the remastered edition of this live album, and hot damn, it sounds most excellent to us. "Chain Gang," "Bring it on Home to Me," and "Twistin' the Night Away" are here along with seven others, sounding better than ever. Much thanks to RCA for throwing this out for public consumption. (Buy it) Soundtrack of the Week: Cirque du Soleil: KÀ. Vegas has a lot of stuff to call its own that other cities should envy. This includes four (I believe soon it will be five) Cirque shows, of which this show is one. It opened this year at the MGM Grand and goes more for story than most Cirque shows. It also employs martial arts and puppetry. Though I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, pretty much every Cirque soundtrack is worth getting whether you've checked out the show or not. The worst they've ever had is still pretty damn good. Recommended. (Buy it) Magazine of the Week: Back Issue! #12. Remember when the idea of a comics hero getting revamped didn't fill you with complete and utter terror? Yeah, we have dim recollections of that ourselves. TwoMorrows' most excellent comic magazine explores those Good Olde Days in their latest issue, covering everything from Watchmen to the black Spidey suit to the Superman revamp of the 70s. There's also a look at a John Byrne take on Shazam! that never saw the light of day, a pencil art gallery of Frank Miller's Elektra, and a hellacious lot more. Hide out with TwoMorrows until the fanboys get run out of the Big Two...that's our plan. (Buy it) Stationery of the Week: Nancy Drew: The Clue Of The Dancing Puppet. This release from Chronicle Books is pretty straight forward: you pull out of a sheet of this and it's the perfect place to write down a letter for your chum. Once done, you fold it up, address it, stamp it, and voila--an awesome Nancy Drew-themed bit you can send off. Fans should be all over this. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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10.09.05 by Widge @ 11:41 pm Here's yer DVD goodness...     TV DVD of the Week: Columbo: The Complete Third Season. All fifteen hours of rumpled sleuthy goodness are here in this two-disc set from Universal. Besides the string of guest stars, like Martin Sheen, Vincent Price, Donald Pleasance, Johnny Cash, and even Mickey Spillane, you also get a bonus episode from the Mrs. Columbo spinoff. Wait a second--Mrs. Columbo? Starring Kate Mulgrew? What the hell? (Buy it) DVD of the Week: Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Watch a half-crazed Bette Davis get pushed over the brink by a scheming Olivia DeHavilland in a southern gothic flick where everybody involved is trying to gnaw the scenery to bits? Where do we sign up? This latest Fox Studio Classics release comes complete with a film historian audio commentary along with trailers and TV spots. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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10.09.05 by Widge @ 10:02 pm Each weekend, Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we? Okay, books and music first...     Book of the Week: Mirrormask: The Illustrated Film Script by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean. I know we can't stop from talking about this film, but you're just going to have to get over it. This Gaiman/McKean collaboration brought to full-on life is amazing, and this script book is flat out necessary. It includes the full script (including the deleted bits) along with storyboards, scads of McKean artwork, correspondence between Gaiman and McKean where they were working up the story, a short essay of each of them talking about the other, and the lyrics to "If I Apologised," the kickass song that ends the movie. This is from William Morrow. Would you see the damn movie already? (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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10.02.05 by Widge @ 11:46 pm Here's yer DVD goodness...    TV DVD of the Week: Alf: Season Two. Lions Gate releases the second season to DVD, featuring twenty-six episodes across four discs. The set is notable in that the menus feature explanations and episode summaries delivered by Alf himself. It's also notable in that it features the Gilligan's Island episode, featuring Bob Denver, Alan Hale, Russell Johnson, and Dawn Wells. You also get episodes from two different Alf cartoons, each one scarier than the last. (Buy it) DVD of the Week: Witness. This Paramount release of the Amish-meets-rest-of-the-world thriller replaces the previous, bare bones DVD release--and fans of the film will be pleased. Not only is it anamorphic this time around, but you also get an extensive five-part docu that features interviews with director Weir, Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis and more. There's also a deleted scene, a trailer and three TV spots. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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10.02.05 by Widge @ 11:02 pm Each weekend, Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey...if you have something you want to recommend--whatever it is--drop us a line. Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we? Okay, books and music first...     Book of the Week: Ian Fleming and James Bond: The Cultural Politics of 007, edited by Edward P. Comentale, Stephen Watt & Skip Willman. On one hand, when you see that this book is a release from the Indiana University Press, you're going to assume that it's a very academic look at Bond. And rightly so. But this, compiled from a conference on the subject from 2003, is filled with a variety of essays that with titles like "Lesbian Bondage, or Why Dykes Like 007" and "Why Size Matters" (which probably has the best opening line of an essay ever: "Despite the connotations of my title, this chapter is not about James Bond's penis") is still an entertaining read for any fan of Bond, literary or cinematic. (Buy it) Audiobook of the Week: Busting Vegas: The MIT Whiz Kid Who Brought the Casinos to Their Knees by Ben Mezrich. Semyon Dukach was a guy who came up with a system to smack down the casinos, and as a result, the casinos worked to ban him from their floors. So he and his friends who developed this system moved from place to place, raking in cash. Mezrich's book (which he reads) details how they were able to legally beat the house and even adapt their technique so that Dukach could do it alone if necessary. This Harper Audio release makes for a good weekend listen. (Buy it) Boxed Set of the Week: The Motown Box. For those that crave stereo mixes of Motown classics, they're here in this set--seventy-two tracks across four discs. A lot of them are extended or alternate mixes, but if you want to grab a bunch of these at one go, this is the way to do it: a crapload of Motown classics, with Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, The Temptations, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and more. (Buy it) CD of the Week: Mirrormask Soundtrack. As I stated in my review of the film, the score is magnificent. From the closing credits song, written by Gaiman and McKean, "If I Apologised," to the "Rabbit Band" played during the pop-up book/library sequence, to the cover song that is really just goddamn nightmarish, it's all here. And it's all excellent. This release is from La-La Land Records. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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09.25.05 by Widge @ 11:51 pm Here's yer DVD goodness...     TV DVD of the Week: The Office: Season One. It looks like the consensus is that this import from Britain has fared a lot better than...well, almost every one from recent memory. Find out for yourself on this Univeral release, which has the six first season episodes on a single disc. The pilot comes with two commentaries and there are three additional commentaries, plus almost an hour of total running time for deleted scenes. Nice. (Buy it) DVD of the Week: The Transporter. Jason Statham is a Needcoffee fave because he's just a cool guy. And we're easy to please when it involves some fu, fast cars, and guns...so this guilty pleasure is a winner in our book. This new Fox special edition replaces the previous offering. You get a commentary from the producer and Statham, behind-the-scenes docu, a making-of featurette, a storyboard-to-film comparison, and fifteen minutes of extended fight fun with commentary. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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09.25.05 by Widge @ 7:26 pm Each weekend, Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey...if you have something you want to recommend--whatever it is--drop us a line. Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we? Okay, books and music first...    Book of the Week: Super #1 Robot: Japanese Robot Toys, 1972-1982 by Tim Brisko, Matt Alt & Robert Duban. Do you dig Japanese toys? Did you grow up with stuff like Shogun Warriors and Gundam and such? Take a stroll down memory lane with an absolute buttload of pics of ten years of classic imported robot toys. A brief amount of text is included, but after reading that, this Chronicle Books release will have you flipping pages--for every few that make you scratch your head, you'll be going, "Oh hell, I know that one!" (Buy it) Audiobook of the Week: Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, performed by various. A group of folks who want to be writers go on a writer's retreat but it turns into something sinister and deadly. Whatever: that's the narrative that binds these stories together...and it's weak. But the stories themselves are the freaky weird "did I just read that?" Palahniuk we've come to love. A full cast takes on the book in this Random House CD release, which is unabridged just like we like it. (Buy it) Graphic Novel of the Week: The King by Rich Koslowski. This Top Shelf book is a very interesting meditation on faith that's disguised as a book about The Second Coming of Elvis. When an individual calling himself The King shows up in Vegas and converts the masses to believing that it's really Him come back for real this time, a former tabloid reporter is called in to make heads or tails of the story for Time Magazine. The story says a great deal about why people feel the need to believe in things with no proof, and why such a thing is even important in this age of science and logic. Definitely worth a read. (Buy it)    Comic Reference Book of the Week: The Justice League Companion. Tired of watching the DCU devolve into a morass of rape, maiming, betrayal and death? Yeah, us too. However, if you want to go back to a time when the books didn't suck, check out TwoMorrows' latest Companion book, this one covering the Silver Age JLA. You get the standard-issue impressive array of stuff, including interviews, previously unpublished artwork, cartoon episode guides and an index for the 1960-1972 issues. Fans, and those wishing for a return to quality (or at least sanity), should own. (Buy it) Comic Book of the Week: Strangehaven #18 by Gary Spencer Millidge. We're big fans of this book, just because every issue it's another round of WTF. Alex winds up in the titular town and can't seem to leave...then doesn't want to leave. The town is filled with twins, ghosts, High Weird Shit, and a strange secret society...which Alex has now joined. And for your bonus weirdness for the issue...a murder. Maybe. Trust me, it all makes sense when you read it. Mostly. This from Millidge's own Abiogenesis Press. Check out his website here. CD of the Week: No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. Give Sony Legacy a ton of credit. Rather than just repurpose stuff that we've already got on multiple copies of the man's greatest hits albums, they're putting out this Bootleg Series of rare and never before released stuff. This one forms the soundtrack for the Scorsese docu, and it's twenty-eight tracks across two discs. There's alternate takes and outtakes, plus "When I Got Troubles," which is supposed to be the first-ever recorded Dylan track. A no-brainer for the hardcore fan. (Buy it) Categorized as: Recommendations
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