Planet Hulk
2-Disc Special Edition DVD
Directed by Sam Liu
Starring Rick D. Wasserman, Lisa Ann Beley, Mark Hildreth, Liam O’Brien, Kevin Michael Richardson, Samuel Vincent, Advah Soudack, Michael Kopsa, Marc Worden
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release Date: February 2, 2010

Planet Hulk is the latest direct-to-DVD film from Marvel’s Animation Studio and it’s got a lot going for it. Director Sam Liu has previously worked on Superman/Batman: Public Enemies and screenwriter Greg Johnson worked on one of my personal favorites, Doctor Strange. The film is also based on one of the best Hulk stories of all time (written by the awesome Greg Pak) in which the Green Goliath is deemed too dangerous for Earth and exiled to another planet free of any intelligent life. Unfortunately something goes wrong and the Hulk’s ship crash lands on a war world where he’s immediately forced into slavery and forced to fight Gladiator-style for his freedom. All of these factors contributed to my Hulk-size anticipation of the film and I can thankfully say I was not disappointed.

Every aspect of Planet Hulk is solid, from the voice acting and animation to the character development and story. The film is a direct adaptation of the previously mentioned Greg Pak epic storyline, which is a different approach in contrast with the recent Marvel animated films which created their own stories and weren’t directly adapted from any one arc [...]

Paris, Texas ***1/2
Criterion Collection – Blu-ray
Directed by Wim Wenders
Starring Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Aurore Clement, Hunter Carson
Release date: January 26, 2010

What a way to open a film. The image first seen conjures up a mood that is sustained throughout the entire picture. It is of a splendidly eerie sight, showing a lonely man strolling aimlessly amidst towering mountains that resemble Monument Valley in which John Ford filmed The Searchers – in which Paris, Texas resembles in a way – with a rugged, dirty suit on, wearing a tattered red baseball cap and clutching an empty jug of water as if his life is depending on it. He has been roaming for days it seems. Just glance down at his shoes, or at least what is left of them, for further evidence of the many miles of terrain this man must have journeyed over. Four years he has appeared this way. Probably shunning reality away every time it manages to creep close to him and running from inner fears that bind him to his past life. There is no doubt he is searching for something. Something that is fearful and passionate only to him. But why? For what? Paris, Texas will slowly expand its straight-edged narrative to expound upon these questions. While all the while doom is looming in the air and the ghastly guitar music is alluding to an act of terror that may have already happened or has yet to have occurred. German director Wim Wenders is able to pierce the heart and confound the mind within the very first sequence of his film: A work of a European in a manner that is so Americana [...]

The Final Destination
3D Blu-ray Edition
Directed by David R. Ellis
Starring Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten, Mykelti Williamson, Nick Zano, Haley Webb
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Release Date: January 5, 2010

Much like the Saw franchise, the Final Destination franchise has become a horror standard. And though they don’t release a Final Destination film every single year like their counterparts do, the movies have always had a great sense of terrifying fun about them. Up to Final Destination 3, these movies were still silly and lacking plots and story, but there was plenty of gruesome fun to be had where Saw got very old very fast after their second installment. So how would The Final Destination, the fourth film in the franchise, hold up? Let’s find out!

This time around, we begin at a suspicious racetrack where NASCAR-quality vehicles race at some small town track where rednecks and apparently good looking college-aged kids like to enjoy the races. As with the previous films, disaster strikes when an unfortunate string of events leads to a massive crash that sends metal and fire shooting into the crowd and causing the aging building to begin collapsing everywhere, killing many, many people. [...]

More Than a Game
Directed by Kristopher Belman
Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Release date: February 2, 2010

They may be the best high school basketball team ever. He may have had the best high school basketball player ever. Akron, Ohio’s St. Vincent-St. Mary won the proverbial basketball lottery when they got LeBron James and his boyhood friends to attend their school. From humble beginnings, future NBA superstar James, along with childhood friends Dru Joyce, Sian Cotton, and Willie McGee, all began a journey that would take them from local fame to national acclaim. The “fab four” were later joined by Romeo Travis in their sophomore year and the five fused their talents and, with the help of a dedicated coach, rewrote Ohio basketball history.

More Than a Game is a very well made documentary that keeps the viewer’s interest throughout with a sly use of visual effects, editing, and original music. Director Kristopher Belman was able to capture some amazingly candid footage by following the St. V basketball team during James’ senior season and with the aid of first-hand accounts by the players themselves, photographs, and home videos, the viewer follows these young men from middle school all the way up until the last days of high school and it’s a remarkable journey [...]

Surrogates
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Jonathan Mostow
Starring Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, James Cromwell, Ving Rhames, Rosamund Pike
Disney Pictures Home Entertainment
Release date: January 26, 2010

Stick a movie in front of me that features Bruce Willis as a member of Law Enforcement and so help me I’ll watch it. From Die Hard to, um, Live Free Or Die Hard — via The Last Boy Scout and Sin City, among many others — Willis has defined the straight-talking no-nonsense no-shaving vest-wearing law-ignoring cop. Surrogates is the latest Willis movie to hit DVD/Blu-ray — a sci-fi action thriller based on the graphic novel of the same name — and this time he’s a robocop.

In the not-too-distant future most of the world’s population rarely venture outside their own homes. Instead they spend their lives as operators, connected to their stem chairs seeing life through robot surrogates. Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling more than 10 years ago, over 98% of the population use surrogates in daily life; they go to work, they do the shopping. Thanks to this statistic, crime in the U.S. is down 99% and all other bad things like racism and sexism have seen a huge decline. Surrogates were initially developed to help disabled people, used only in a medical context. Then costs came down and eventually these robots became affordable to regular people and private use of surrogates became popular.

Surrogates are you, but much better in every way: flawless skin, perfect hair, they cannot be hurt, and should they be destroyed, you can just buy a new one. This is a world populated by only beautiful people. This is life… only better [...]

Family Guy Presents: Something Something Something Dark Side
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Dominic Polcino
Starring Seth MacFarlane, Seth Green, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Patrick Warburton, Mike Green
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 22, 2009

Family Guy is at it again with their second visit to the Star Wars universe in Something Something Something Dark Side. After they successfully spoofed Star Wars: A New Hope in humorous but faithful fashion with Blue Harvest, we could hardly wait for more to come around. Now that we have this cartoon version of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back available to us, the trilogy spoof is almost complete!

The best thing about these movies is that everyone can enjoy them. Not everyone is a Star Wars fanatic, so this is a hilarious way for them to see the world and the characters, even if it’s absurdly different from the way that George Lucas created them to be. For those of you non-Star Wars fans, this second film in the series takes place a few years after the Rebel Alliance blew the hell out of the Emperor and Darth Vader’s precious Death Star. Now the Empire is hot on their tail with plans for revenge. After Luke Skywalker comes into his own as a Jedi with intense training by Jedi Master Yoda, he hurries to a showdown with Vader after the evil Sith springs a trap on Han Solo, Princess Leia, and his other companions.

Returning for the second adventure is Peter Griffin as Han Solo, Stewie Griffin as Darth Vader, Brian Griffin as Chewbacca, Carter Pewterschmidt as the Emperor, and Glenn Quagmire as C-3PO [...]

(500) Days of Summer
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Marc Webb
Starring Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Fox Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 22, 2009

The omniscient narrator declares that what we are watching is not a love story, but a story about love. An odd little twist that brings a kind of assurance and authenticity to (500) Days Summer. Once this statement is solidified early on in the film it makes us view the movie in a slightly different way and rightfully so. An original narrative technique is what the film has going for it. It disregards a linear story line but never capitalizes on the true potential the script really has. Many films use discombobulated narratives that are fragmented and dislocated to resemble the emotions its characters are feeling. The split screens and split narratives are too much imbued within stylistic ploys, making each scene that carries these fashionable devices incompetent and never availing.

Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, along with the innovative mind of director Marc Webb, may have dislocate the narrative a tad too much and haven’t peered thoroughly enough into the emotional angst of Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a greeting card writer, who is in love with Summer (Zooey Deschanel), his coworker. This is Tom’s story he tells to his two friends and little sister, in a way that isn’t chronological, his mishaps and successes he has experienced with Summer throughout the 500 days he believed he loved her [...]

Adult Swim in a Box
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 2 | Space Ghost Season 3 | Moral Oral Season 1 | Robot Chicken Season 2 | Metalocalypse Season 1 | Sealab Season 2
Animated
Cartoon Network
Release date: October 27, 2009

It is true what they say: Good things do come in small packages. Or in the case of Adult Swim in a Box, it comes in a small box. This new collection offers up full seasons of SeaLab 2021, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, Metalocalypse, Robot Chicken, Moral Orel, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The set also comes with a nice bonus disc full of Adult Swim pilots never before seen until now. And with a price tag of $69.95 (and that’s the list price; Amazon has it now for $50.49), it is hard to find anything wrong with a set like this but not impossible.

Like it is written on the DVD, this set is indeed a cash grab. The fine folks at Adult Swim have packed in six seasons’ worth (around 20 hours) of content. This, along with the price tag, is a definite steal for any fan of Adult Swim who has not gotten the DVD sets for themselves or as a gift for a person who has not been properly introduced to the lunacy that is Adult Swim. My only big issue with the set is the lack of fluidity among the seasons [...]

Extract
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Mike Judge
Starring Jason Batemen, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Clifton Collins Jr., J.K. Simmons, David Koechner
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 22, 2009

Mike Judge hasn’t had the best of luck when it comes to his films. Whether it’s his now cult classic Office Space, Idiocracy, or his latest film, Extract, it always seems like he has problems getting the backing that he needs or the proper attention from movie goers that he deserves. Another trend that’s typical in Judge’s movies, is that they’re all fantastic, so I was excited to finally get to see Extract for myself.

Extract tells the story of Joel (Jason Bateman), the owner and manager of Reynold’s Extract, a company that makes those little bottles of flavor extracts such as vanilla, peppermint, and perhaps even cookies and cream. Joel is desperately seeking a large company to come along and buy him out so he can retire and hopefully revive the deceased intimacy between he and his wife (if he’s not home by 8:00PM on the button, she will have her sweatpants on, and he never gets to have sex) Suzie (Kristen Wiig) [...]

G-Force
3-Disc DVD/Blu-ray Combo
Directed by Hoyt H Yeatman Jr
Starring Sam Rockwell, Jon Favreau, Penelope Cruz, Tracy Morgan, Nicolas Cage, Steve Buscemi, Bill Nighy, Will Arnett, Zak Galifianakis
Walt Disney Pictures Home Entertainment
Release date: December 15, 2009

I’m an adult that can really enjoy a children’s movie, so long as it’s smart. When I saw the posters for Disney’s live-action/CG-animated combo G-Force — a film about a group of guinea pigs specially trained to be secret government agents — I thought for sure it would be riddled with puns and corny jokes to make little kids laugh. And that’s totally fine, little kids need entertainment too. But, if I have to slap my forehead and roll my eyes through a movie, I’m not sitting through it. Plus, it’s you know, CGI guinea pigs!

As it turns out, I loved G-Force. I know, I know, I’m surprised too. But those furry little government spies are totally adorable, and they kick butt too. Zak Galifianakis stars as Ben, the human leader of the special FBI animal unit G-Force, which consists of guinea pigs Darwin (Sam Rockwell), Juarez (Penelope Cruz), and Blaster (Tracy Morgan), along with mole Speckles (Nicolas Cage), and fly Mooch (Dee Bradley Baker). After their latest field mission to gather damaging evidence against appliance giant Leonard Saber (Bill Nighy) proves unsuccessful, Agent Kip (Will Arnett) informs Ben that the FBI is pulling the funding on the G-Force unit. When the furry agents overhear Kip horrible plans for them, the animals make a run for it and decide to complete their original mission to uncover Saber’s nefarious plans [...]

Vampire Killers
Directed by Phil Claydon
Starring Mathew Horne, James Corden, MyAnna Buring, Paul McGann, Silvia Colloca
Weinstein Company
Release date: December 29, 2009

Hundreds of years ago vampires descended on the small hamlet of Cragwich. The Head Vampire, Carmilla (Silvia Colloca), placed a curse on Cragwich so that all its women-folk would turn into vampires (more than that, lesbian vampires) on their 18th birthday. Holidaying friends Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Fletch (James Corden) have entered a world of trouble. And babes.

I will not even try and pretend that I had any kind of creative or cultural curiosities about this movie going in to it; it’s about sexy vampires. However, I can claim that it featured one of my favourite comedy duos of recent years. Here in the UK, Mathew Horne (The Catherine Tate Show) and James Corden (History Boys and the upcoming Gulliver’s Travels) have just wrapped up the hugely popular — and very funny — but sadly short lived sitcom, Gavin and Stacey. Horne stars as Gavin, a sensible, softly spoken, hopeless romantic who lives with his parents. Corden (who also serves as co-writer) backs him up as his overweight but always eating, loyal, fun best friend, Smithy, the real star of the show. Horne is straight-laced, cautious, dependable. Corden is loud, carefree and crude. This buddy act they continued in their sketch comedy show, Horne and Corden, and they reprise those roles again in British comedy horror, Vampire Killers [...]

Seventh Moon
Directed by Eduardo Sanchez
Starring Amy Smart, Dennis Chan, Tim Chiou
Lionsgate
Release Date: October 6, 2009

Back in the summer of 1999 I refused to get caught up in the hype over The Blair Witch Project, but when the movie came out on video that October I watched it and delighted in rediscovering the sensation of what it was like to enjoy an old-fashioned horror flick that eschewed gory special effects in favor of building an atmosphere of mounting dread and the unseen terrors roaming the woods. Nevertheless, the movie was a huge hit and soon became part of the pop culture lexicon. It’s just a shame that none of the actors from the film or even its two directors went on to the prolific careers they deserved.

One of Blair Witch’s directors, Eduardo Sanchez, has only made two films in the ten years since its release. The most recent of which, Seventh Moon, has seen some decent film festival play and is now available on DVD as part of the Ghost House Underground series. It’s clear that Sanchez is still trying to recapture some of that same filmmaking magic that conjured his greatest triumph so far as a director, but the time for that may have passed a long time ago.

Newlyweds Yul (Tim Chiou) and Melissa (Amy Smart) have decided to spend their honeymoon in China so they can further explore the rich culture that is part of the birthright Yul has been mostly unfamiliar with his whole life [...]

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Blu-ray Edition
Directed by Shawn Levy
Starring Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest
Fox Home Entertainment
Release Date: December 1, 2009

I’ll be honest, when I found out the exhibits at the Museum of Natural History would be coming to life on screen once more in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian I wasn’t all that enthusiastic. I figured the “magic” was already revealed in the first movie and that this sequel would just be more of the same. Let’s face it, the first film, which starred Ben Stiller as Larry Daley, a night guard at the Museum of Natural History in New York, was a hit, so why mess with a perfect formula? That’s why screenwriters Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant were smart enough to stick with what drew audiences in initially — the inanimate exhibit figures coming to life at sundown and Larry fighting villains attempting to gain control of a powerful object — while making it much more than just a simple repeat of its predecessor.

The sequel finds Larry out of his museum night guard duds and into the role of CEO of Daley Devices, the company founded to sell his inventions, like the The Glow-In-The-Dark Flashlight and The Unloseable Keyring. The successful Larry decides to visit his old place of employment, the Museum of Natural History, the setting of 2006’s Night at the Museum, which is now closed for renovations and its famous exhibits packed away in crates to be sent to permanent storage at the Smithsonian Institute’s Federal Archives in Washington DC. After hours, the figures come to life and Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) explains that Pharaoh Ahkmenrah’s Tablet, which is what animates the figures at sundown, won’t be going to the Archives with everyone else. While the situation is dire for his friends, Larry is distracted by his phone’s incoming messages and all of his business ventures to do anything about it [...]

Fear Itself: The Complete First Season
Directed by Ronnie Yu, John Landis, Darren Lynn Bousman
Starring Brandon Routh, Elizabeth Moss, Eric Roberts, Cynthia Watros, Wendell Pierce, Shiri Appleby, John Billingsley, Rachel Miner
Lionsgates Films
Released Date: September 15, 2009

Apparently, FDR was wrong. There are plenty of other things to fear than fear itself. This is what I gathered after sitting down and watching the first season of Fear Itself.

The concept itself is not new. Much like many of the anthologies before it, from The Twilight Zone to Tales From the Crypt, Fear Itself offers up hour long mini horror “movies” directed by some of today’s masters of suspense. As an added bonus, each episode features familiar stars, from both the big and small screen.

I wanted to like this series a lot. If you used your Wayback Machine, you would clearly see a little Jack Bauerstein sitting in his living room and watching reruns of The Outer Limits with Neil Patrick Harris in it. I wanted the series to work but for several reasons, the series misses its mark.

For one thing, the writing is not all that fantastic. Yes, there are indeed a handful of episodes that work very well in the hour long format but in general, most of the stories are tired and unoriginal [...]

Crank 2: High Voltage
Directed by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Clifton Collins Jr., Bai Ling, Efren Ramirez
Lionsgate

Crank, the Red Bull and crystal meth-fueled 2006 action epic, became a minor classic of its time but failed to connect with moviegoers despite the presence of rising celluloid badass Jason Statham in the lead role of unstoppable contract killer Chev Chelios. It wasn’t until the movie hit DVD the next year that it began to find its audience. The sales must have been strong because they were more than enough for Crank’s distributor Lionsgate to approach the movie’s writer/director team of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor for a sequel. The problem is that the finale of Crank found Chelios dropped from a helicopter over Los Angeles and fought his nemesis to the bitter end. Then he became a street pancake. The end, or so we initially thought. Hey this is Hollywood baby, and in this land of cocaine wishes and Vicodin dreams anything’s possible, even surviving a plummet to the earth from 30,000 feet. And with that in mind, Neveldine/Taylor gives us Crank 2: High Voltage, as boldly over-the-top as a sequel can possibly be.

On our last episode of Crank Chelios was injected with a special Chinese poison by his enemy Verona and in order to keep from kicking the bucket before he could take his revenge Chev had to keep his heart pumping. After a day-long battle that spanned almost all of the City of Angels Chev finally exacted a bloody and satisfying vengeance upon his archnemesis, and then he died. Crank 2 picks up immediately where the original left off with a group of Chinese gangsters scooping the dead Chelios off the asphalt with a snow shovel and spiriting him away to a brothel/makeshift hospital where his powerful heart is surgically removed and placed in the hands of spastic Triad thug Johnny Vang (Art Hsu) [...]

Fight Club
10th Anniversary Edition – Blu-ray
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Edward Norton, Brad Pit, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf
Twentieth Century Fox
Release Date: November 17, 2009

The tail end of the 90s was branded with a profound exclamation point, dealing with existentialism, fractured identities, and mindsets that were convoluted and shifty. People asked questions such as who are we? What good are we? Are we constructed socially or does man possess the capability of reasoning? Weeding out all impurities that blockade us; insulating us from conceptualizing what and who we truly are, and trying to summon back the primitive man by exhibiting symptoms of commercialism (IKEA) and materialism (khakis), Fight Club is sending crushing blows to the entire consumerist establishment that claims they know what is best for humanity. By anesthetizing society? Or by genetically breeding humans to behave like wild consumers who negate their true passions to conform to what society wants them to be? As audacious as this all sounds Fight Club is direct and impactful in its way of conveying this message. Uncompromising in its ability to take us to uncharted territories, a raw and unforgettable experience is dished out.

This vicious, yet revolutionary, assault is not presented in a soft and snug manner. The spokesperson for this radical movement, revolutionist Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), acknowledges consumerism with arms outspread. Once within his grasp he turns it into a burden, making a materialistic individual, our narrator (Edward Norton), realize that materialism has the tendency to make the human soul rot, decay and then wither away. Not fulfilling or sustaining it as the ads claim to do [...]

Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection
Blu-ray Box Set (Clerks | Chasing Amy | Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back)
Directed by Kevin Smith
Starring Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, Joey Lauren Adams, Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release Date: November 17, 2009

Before I delve into the specifics about the movies and bonus content included in this Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection, I’m going to let you know right off the bat whether you should purchase this Blu-ray collection. If you’re already a fan of writer/director Kevin Smith, then yes, by all means, acquire this Blu-ray set, because not only will you get restored and upgraded versions of three of his films — Clerks, Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back — but you’ll have Smith’s presence all over this collection. That right there is reason enough to own this box set, as is the bonus material added for this Blu-ray release.

If you’re not already familiar with Smith’s films and you have no problem with intelligent comedy heavily laced with profanity, then you owe it to yourself to give these movies a try. If you already know that you don’t like Kevin Smith movies, then you apparently have no soul and are a lost cause.

The three movies included in this set are from the View Askewniverse, Smith’s fictional world with characters played by the same actors shared across all the films, tied together mainly by the two stoners, Jay and Silent Bob (play by Jason Mewes and Smith, respectively). Two big actors in this universe are Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who first appear in Chasing Amy when they were still relative unknowns and return for dual roles in the bigger production Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as their View Askew characters, as well as their A-list selves [...]

The Best of Star Trek
The Original Series – Vol. 2
Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan
The Next Generation – Vol. 2
Starring Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn
Paramount Home Entertainment
Release Date: November 17, 2009

Earlier this year, Paramount Home Entertainment released Best Of Star Trek DVDs for Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Each DVD contained four episodes, apparently deemed as the “best” in their respective series. Considering how long each series ran (79 episodes in TOS; 178 in TNG), four episodes hardly seems sufficient, so it’s no surprise that the studio has followed up with Volume 2 Best Of collections for both series, released in conjunction with the release of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek on DVD and Blu-ray this month.

Both Volume 2 DVDs contain fully remastered episodes and enhanced special effects (the same ones included in the recent Blu-ray releases) and are economically priced at priced, making them them a great choice for any new viewers who want to jump onto either Star Trek show. Most die-hard fans of Trek would probably already own all the season DVDs, though your average fan might not want to or be able to invest in them, so these DVDs might be the way to go for them as well [...]

X-Men
Marvel DVD Comic Book Collection
Volume 1-4
Starring Norm Spencer, Cedric Smith, Cathal J. Dodd
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 28, 2009

When I found out that the X-Men cartoons from 1992 were being put out on DVD, my nine-year-old self jumped out of my body and threatened me with bodily harm if I did not pick up this DVD. Fearing for my life and the risk of being beat up by a nine-year-old, I relented.

For those who are unfamiliar with this cartoon, X-Men debuted on the Fox Kids Network in late 1992, and was part of the Fox Saturday Morning line-up alongside another little unknown cartoon called Batman: The Animated Series. The cartoon featured the popular Marvel mutants, led by their mentor, Dr. Charles Xavier and their battles with the mutants hell-bent on destroying the world. This incarnation of X-Men was composed of members from the past (Cyclops, Jean Grey) and present (Wolverine, Gambit) teams.

Now, there were many things that I loved about this cartoon. For one thing, it was one of the only cartoons back then where one of the main character was an Asian person. That’s right, the series featured newest X-Men recruit Jubilation Lee, aka Jubilee, quite prominently in the series. Being Asian myself, it was hard to find any person who was Asian on TV with such a prominent role and so seeing Jubilee front and center was certainly awesome [...]

The IT Crowd
The Complete Third Season
Written and directed by Graham Linehan
Starring Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, Matt Berry
MPI Home Video
Release date: September 15, 2009

For the uninitiated, The IT Crowd is a British-made sitcom and the story so far goes something like this: Jen (Katherine Parkinson) is hired as the new head of department in the IT basement. Her new ‘team’ is Roy (Chris O’Dowd) and Moss (Richard Ayoade), Reynholm Industries’ computer support nerds. Roy and Moss are very comfortable in their geeky treasure trove office. They don’t need a head of department and their frustrations spill out onto their computer-illiterate colleagues. Roy and Moss are intimidated by women and ‘real men’, learning to interact with both by researching on the internet.

The IT Crowd Season 3, like the two seasons before, is written and directed by Graham Linehan, responsible for many excellent comedy series like Father Ted, Black Books, and Big Train. The IT Crowd follows the familiar brand of surreal humour with some outrageous characters.

Richmond – who had an improved role in Season 2 – disappears altogether from Season 3. I think this was a good idea. Richmond always seemed to have potential but no one really knew what to do with him [...]