Johnny Cash Christmas Special 1976 & 1977
Two DVDs (sold separately)
Shout Factory

Johnny Cash was one of those rare figures in American music that was loved by most everyone. Country music fans, counterculturalists, the establishment, and lovers of traditional gospel music all found plenty of reasons to like the Man In Black.

After his television show went off the air, he still was in high demand, so CBS contracted with him for two hour-long Christmas variety specials in 1976 and 1977. And now, they are available on DVD.

The 1976 show is more “down-home” featuring sing alongs with the friends and family in the Cash home. It also features Roy Clark, Merle Travis, The Carter Family, Barbara Mandrell, Billy Graham, and “¦Tony Orlando!

Yes, that’s right, Mr. Orlando is a guest on this TV special, and he sings “Tie A Yellow Ribbon” along with Cash and June Carter Cash. Yes, he calls it his “prison song,” and actually, back in the day, that was probably the only way that song could be interpreted, as schmaltzy as it was.

The 1976 show was decent, even though Orlando stuck out like a sore thumb (but he was hot back then). However, the 1977 show was a classic.

Guy X (2005)
Director: Saul Metzstein
Cast: Jason Biggs, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Northam, Michael Ironside
First Look Pictures
On-sale: Nov. 27, 2007

Geeks Of Doom sent an email to the staff about movie screeners. The items on the list were about aliens, SpongeBob, and a little movie called Guy X that caught my eye, all because of one little name. His name is one name that I know very well. I stuck by him when he stuck his crank in a pie, and I cheered him on in that Freddie Prinze, Jr. bullshit called Boys and Girls. I watched him in the very depressing Prozac Nation and I once made sweet hot DeFrancisco love to his Anything Else co-star Christina Ricci. I even sat through Loser just to for him!

You guys know him by now. The name is Biggs, Jason Biggs, and he’s here to sleep with your cousin.

But even the godly reincarnation that is Jason Biggs couldn’t save a movie like Guy X. It’s not so much horrible, but at times it is either boring or tiring. It begins with a good start, and hell, I even laughed at a few of those scenes. But a half-hour like that, it loses my interest with a very slow and a very uncontrollable pace. Just a couple of minor adjustments to Guy X and it would have been a great movie, not boring and pretty interesting.

A plane drops Private Rudy Spurance (God”¦ I mean Jason Biggs) in a United States military base in Greenland. But then Spurance does a Dante Hicks and says”¦ I’M NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! And it’s true, he’s not. Actually, he’s supposed to be stationed south in Hawaii. After landing, mosquitoes start biting him and he looks like an acne-faced teenager. The other soldiers start making fun of him for the little dance he does while he’s getting bit, which ends him up into the hospital on base.

The Misadventures Of Clark And Jefferson #2 of 4
Writer: Jay Carvajal
Artist: Marc Borstel
Ape Entertainment
Cover Price: $3.50; On-sale: Nov 2007

Take equal parts Lethal Weapon, Deadwood, and Starship Troopers, and you may have the weird mix that is the Misadventures of Clark and Jefferson. Issue #1 and #2 set up a nice little mini that starts out as regular old western story but then takes a turn for the weird about halfway through the first issue. Is it possible that cowboys will become the new zombies? One hopes not, because I don’t think I can deal with a cowboy Spider-Man variant cover.

Tom Clark is the sheriff of the small town of Sagebrush, and along with his deputy Jefferson, their job is to keep the streets clean. After the events of the first issue, Clark and Jefferson find themselves without horses and smelling of manure after hiding from aliens in an outhouse. Soon they find their way to an Army outpost that has also run afoul of the invading aliens and have found that they must hold up for the night. After a brief rest and dinner with the inhabitants of the outpost, the aliens make their grand arrival and begin their attack on the humans. This is where the story steers into Starship Troopers territory, as the characters have to face an army of aliens using only the rifles and handguns they have available to them.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
The Complete TV Series DVD Box Set
Starring Robert Vaughn, David McCullum, Leo G. Carroll
TimeLife
On sale: Nov. 27, 2007

When I was a kid, there were so many spy shows on network TV, that prime time looked like a propaganda project for the Department Of Defense.

On any given night you could watch British spies (The Avengers ran on American TV from 1966-69 and Secret Agent, also called Danger Man, from 1964-66); cowboy spies (The Wild Wild West, 1965-69; cool-talking, tennis-playing spies (I Spy, 1965-68); spy teams (Mission: Impossible, 1966-73); funny spies (Get Smart, 1965-70), and even monkey spies (Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp 1970-72). The grand TV spy tradition continues today with shows like Alias (2001-06) and the new USA cable show Burn Notice.

But one of the first spy TV shows — and some would say one of the best — was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68) The series starred Robert Vaughn (who you may remember as the villain and Richard Pryor’s comic foil in Superman III) as the suave Napoleon Solo and David McCullum (currently a medical examiner on the series NCIS) as the enigmatic Russian spy Illya Kuryakin. The series was a huge hit and top-rated series that spawned several TV movies, a reunion a spin-off (The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. 1966-67), comic books, and countless toys and other merchandise.

Now TimeLife has issued all 105 Man From U.N.C.L.E. episodes on 41-disc DVD set. To promote the effort, the TimeLife folks also issued an advance DVD containing the first U.N.C.L.E. pilot, simply called “Solo”; an interview with Vaughn and McCallum; a background feature on the series and a feature on the various U.N.C.L.E. episode guest stars (including a great clip of William Shatner, playing an intoxicated character, having a conversation with Leonard Nimoy, playing a deadly foreign agent).

The Mist (2007)
Directed by Frank Darabont
Written by Frank Darabont
Original Story by Stephen King
Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Nathan Gamble
Darkwoods Productions
Dimension Films

Frank Darbont has one massive feather in his cap. He adapted a Stephen King novella into one of the greatest films of all time — The Shawshank Redemption. An avid fan of King, he went on to adapt The Green Mile, which was not as warmly welcomed, but had an admittedly tough act to follow. So for the duo’s third collaboration, The Mist, there was reason to approach with reserved enthusiasm. Ultimately, the film stays true to nearly every aspect of the book. However, the sparing moments when it strays are so vital to the overall picture that it becomes simultaneously entertaining and disappointing.

The Mist was originally an audiobook experiment, designed to immerse the listener in the story through “3-D Sound” long before surround sound was invented. Despite being over twenty years old, the story’s message remains as potent as ever and has a simple plot that is easily modernized.

Probably the most exciting moment for King fans will come during the opening credits. The first time we meet protagonist David Drayton (Thomas Jane), he is designing a movie poster for what fans will immediately recognize as The Dark Tower, a moment probably thrown in just to tease fans about the future film by J.J. Abrams. But his artwork is quickly destroyed when a tree crashes through his window. A massive storm comes crashing down on the small east-coast town of Bridgton, Maine.