8 Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Craig Kilborn left late night at the top of his game and with a killer arsenal of bits like Asexual Icon and To Blank with Love. I was cool on Ferguson at first, but his single-topic, stream-of-consciousness monologue is now the best in late night, and it kills me every time during the e-mail segment when he says, "Remember, if you want to e-mail me, it's Craig at the Internet slash Google dot Earthlink slash com."7 Invasion ABC scored the only new show out of the glut of creepy-drama upstarts that kept me coming back this season (goodbye, Threshold and Surface – nice try, though). That scene in which Muriel peers into the water and comes face to face with her dead body was the scariest thing on TV all year.6 iTunes Me in front of my iMac with 1,641 of my songs (and counting) playing through a great pair of headphones on shuffle. Thank you, Apple.5 Confessions on a Dance Floor • Madonna Easily her best since Ray of Light, this seamless electronica platter is a welcome return to form.4 Jeopardy! Like Law & Order, Jeopardy! is one of those shows I always respected but rarely watched. Then I tuned in for the Ken Jennings run (the return-until-you-get-beat rule was a brilliant move) and became permanently hooked on this unabashed celebration of knowledge.3 Blogging It really is a whole new world, and I had largely ignored it until jumping on the bandwagon about six months ago. Now it's my hobby and a whole new realm of websites that entertain me.2 TV on DVD I'm currently watching Battlestar Galactica Season 1, The Twilight Zone Season 1 ('80s version), The X-Files Season 4, NewsRadio Season 2, Seinfeld Season 3, Reno 911 Season 2, V: The Complete Series, and Once and Again Season 2. 'Nuff said. Which brings us to …1 Battlestar Galactica Season 1 DVD Maybe it’s the cylons, not just sleek machines now but human in form, as well, and especially devious. Maybe it's the silent drama of an incoming missile. Maybe it's the steely resolve of Commander Adama (brilliantly pegged by Edward James Olmos). These things and so much more make this the best show on television and, perhaps, the best television sci-fi drama ever.
Genre: Game show
Logistics: NBC, due to return
Verdict: &&&"No trivia questions, no crazy stunts," Howie Mandel says during the opening of Deal or No Deal, the latest network stab at a big-money primetime game show and, like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, a show that is already a foreign success. While half of that statement sounds like a potshot at Fear Factor, one of the most heinous crimes ever foisted on the American viewing public, the other half , "no trivia questions," only calls attention to how thin a concept Deal or No Deal really is: A contestant chooses one of 26 suitcases containing dollar amounts ranging from 1 cent to $1 million. Suitcases are opened in chunks of six, then five, etcetera, with the bank making an offer to buy back the contestant's suitcase after each round of selections. If the revealed suitcases contain a lot of low values, the bank's offer goes up. It's all a matter of chance and determining when is the right moment to stop – and that's just about it, with big money and glitzy production to prop it up. The stage full of suitcases is a nice touch, reminiscent of the '70s and '80s Treasure Hunt (a Chuck Barris production, no less), with its stage full of prize packages, one of which contained a check for a large sum. I like that there's a model on Deal to hold each and every suitcase and a constant barrage of statistics thrown up onscreen, such as, "Marla has a 60 percent chance of having $100,000 or more in her suitcase." The show's weakness is its one-dimensionality – introducing some family members on the sidelines does not qualify as mixing things up. Even Press Your Luck, the king of luck-based games, varied the pace with two question rounds. Nevertheless, Deal can be entertaining, especially when only a few cases remain and big money is still on the board. Its Dec. 19-23 run performed well enough that NBC has reportedly green-lighted further production. Since most of the few new game shows we get these days are formats that have proved to be international successes, here's hoping some American producer takes note of Australia's long-running success with $ale of the Century (it's the kind of juggernaut there that Wheel of Fortune is here), a game that's nonstop fun and, unlike Deal, weaves together a number of compelling elements.// Fun fact // NBC's last game show attempt was the unspectacular revival of Let's Make a Deal.
Genre: Sci-fi
Director: George Lucas
Released: Nov. 1, 2005
Verdict: &&&1/2It's supposed to be about Anakin Skywalker succumbing to the dark side of the Force, but Ian McDiarmid's scene-stealing makes Revenge of the Sith more about Chancellor Palpatine as evil seducer. McDiarmid owns this movie: His delivery of lines like "Not … from a Jedi" and "Master Jedi, are you threatening me?" is simply chilling. His grand presence underscores the thinness of other performances – Hayden Christensen gets the youthful petulance of his role right, but he is hopelessly out of his league when bouncing lines off McDiarmid. And, if Samuel L. Jackson and Natalie Portman have ever come across more wooden than they do here, someone tell me where (Phantom Menace doesn't count). I think some critics gave George Lucas a bit of a free ride on Sith because it's the last movie and we all really wanted to love it. I do like it, but I prefer Attack of the Clones, with its thrilling assassination attempt/chase opening and water planet scenes. One of the best things about Sith is its visual bridging to Star Wars in the final scenes, creating a sense that the story truly has come full circle. Sith's second half succeeds in creating a sustained tension as Anakin moves further down the path to transformation and the Jedi come under attack, but this is also where the movie makes its biggest plot fumble – the failure to provide a single, believable event that pushes him over the edge. That event came in the wrong movie – Attack of the Clones – when Anakin finds what the sand people have done to his mother and gets in touch with his inner dark side. // DVD notes // For a six-channel soundtrack to a Star Wars movie, there's very little happening in the surrounds. The deleted scenes, including an action sequence chopped from the opening and some political maneuvering, are worth watching but not revealing.
A quick stroll through the latest additions to my playlist …
5 Black Mercedes • One Block Radius One Block Radius unabashedly taps the Outkast "Hey Ya" vibe, but it's too catchy to call it a rip-off. We'll call it an homage instead.
4 Cool • Gwen Stefani Had this come on the radio in 1986, no one would have batted an eye, so well does the new queen of pop channel that perfect '80s pop sound. Play it between "Voices Carry" and "Always Something There to Remind Me" and tell me it isn't true. A brilliant single in the spirit of No Doubt's wonderful cover of Talk Talk's "It's My Life."
3 Crazy (James Michael Mix) • Alanis Morissette A natural choice for Alanis, given its wordiness. The electronic mix is nice, if perhaps a little too faithful to the original. This single, an offering from her new hits disc, might have benefited from a little more space between it and Seal's 1991 original. It's mildly interesting and not surprising that radio has completely ignored it thus far.
2 King of Pain • Alanis Morissette From her MTV Unplugged album, this Police cover is again a natural, wordy choice for the Queen of Pain. Her delicate delivery of that deeply hooky line, "I have stood here before inside the pouring rain …" is so good it hurts.
1 Keeping the Faith (Dance Remix) • Billy Joel In this age of remixes that bear little if any resemblance to the original song, it's easy to forget how much fun they used to be. From his new "My Lives" collection, this treatment of one of the many singles from his 1983 "An Innocent Man" album is a pleasant reminder. This twist on a great pop song makes you a believer by goosing the groove just a bit and adding some new percussive flourishes and choir-like background vocals.
Genre: New age
Released: Nov. 22, 2005
Verdict: &&&1/2 Let's review an important lesson of the 2000s that Enya's handlers apparently didn't pick up on: The new age diva can be a successful singles artist, not just a reliable (but slow to produce) album artist. Three years ago, A Day Without Rain's lead single, "Only Time," ascended to number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, very belatedly giving Enya her first top 10 single. The song had several things going for it, including soundtrack placement and post-Sept. 11 emotions, but the key to its success was a pop radio mix that got her spins at top 40. More recently, Mario Winans scored a massive number two hit with "I Don't Wanna Know," which relies heavily on a sample of "Boadicea" from her first album, The Celts. Not only was the song quite good, it gave us the amusing credit: Mario Winans feat. Enya and P. Diddy. Who knew Celtic divas were so fly? She should be poised for another hit, but I've not heard a trace of the new single on the radio nor seen any press on the new album other than a couple of tepid reviews. The EP of "Amarantine" offers a standard single mix that sounds just like the album version. Where's "Amarantine (So Def Mix)" feat. Slim Thug and Chingy? Barring that, at least a pop mix would seem a wise move, given her recent exposure to younger record buyers/downloaders.
Despite the absence of savvy marketing, the new album is good, even if it treads water artistically and follows a number of well-established patterns. For example, the gently waltzing first single is the second track (hello, "Only Time," "Anywhere Is," and "Caribbean Blue"), and there is exactly one track, "The River Sings," about midway through that pulsates with an electronic groove (hello, "Ebudae"). There's singing in English, and there's heartfelt emoting in other languages, now including some gibberish called Loxian (hello, every Enya album). Nevertheless, Enya's soothing concoctions are almost always effective, tapping something that can only be called spiritual (and not in a strict religious sense, unless that's what you get from it). Highlights include opener "Less Than a Pearl," which features a signature soaring Enya melody and musically sounds almost like a leftover from The Celts, and "Drifting," a piano-driven instrumental that invites you to do just that. In a world too often lacking kindness, Enya is the most reassuring and comforting of artists, so there will be no complaints from me if she chooses to merely rewrite past successes.// Other music reviews // Madonna • Confessions on a Dance Floor
Genre: Dance/electronica
Released: Nov. 15, 2005
Verdict: &&&&1/2After the commercial failure of American Life, it's no surprise that Madonna takes a radically different approach on Confessions on a Dance Floor, a shimmery, ballad-free dance album that is arguably her most compulsively listenable since Ray of Light. While American Life is underrated – "Love Profusion" ranks among her best songs ever, and the singles were well crafted, even if they failed to connect – I'll agree that the fun had gone out of it. The attempt at rapping was weak, and the jagged production style of Mirwais Ahmadzai, which worked better on Music, became taxing. (On Confessions, Ahmadzai is held over for one track, "Future Lovers," which turns out to be one of the stronger songs here.) Teaming with producer Stuart Price (of the little-known group Zoot Woman), Madonna gets her glitter ball groove back, creating a seamless electronica dish that pulsates with energy and vibrant melodies from start to finish. Lead single "Hung Up," which wraps a great pop hook around ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!," rightfully soared into the Billboard top 10 this week thanks to strong iTunes sales. "Jump" and "Sorry" seem likely singles, but a daring choice would be the chant- and string-filled "Isaac," six minutes of hypnotic bliss in the style of Ray of Light's "Shanti/Ashtangi" and the Music-era B-side "Cyberraga." It's reassuring, on Confessions, to see Madonna let go and have fun – something it seemed she had forgotten how to do. After the creative peak of Ray of Light, some disappointments were inevitable, but this return to form isn't one of them.// Other music reviews // Enya • Amarantine// Linkage // Official site - Madonna.com
Genre: Retro compilation
Released: Oct. 25, 2005
Game-play: &&&1/2
Presentation & extras: &&&1/2Loaded with 29 games, this collection throws in some that have no business appearing under the "legends" banner, but there are enough true classics here to make this an essential purchase for any member of the Atari generation. I felt like a lottery winner when I saw it would include Elevator Action, in which you make your way down an elevator- and escalator-filled office tower while shooting spies in the kneecaps and ducking in the red doors to steal documents. It's one of those games whose simplicity only enhances its appeal, and I can play it for ages without growing bored. I'd forgotten how much I love to see the spies tumble down the elevator shaft or get squashed underneath the elevator. I immediately noticed that the audio in Elevator Action seems less polished than that of the NES version, but maybe it's just me.
There are bigger names here, like Space Invaders, Jungle Hunt, Phoenix, Bubble Bobble and its sequel, Rainbow Islands. I actually never played Space Invaders in the arcade and am surprised at how difficult it is compared to the Atari 2600 version. Both its sequels are included, and, while Space Invaders Part 2 arguably doesn't tweak the game play enough, Return of the Invaders strays pretty far from the primitive original and appears to have been influenced by Galaga, even down to including a challenging stage. The most pleasant surprise is Tube It, a puzzler variation with dropping pieces for the Tetris crowd in which sections of pipe must be shifted to make connections from side to side before the screen fills to the top. It's about as compulsively playable as a puzzler gets. Speaking of puzzles, it seems odd to give us Super Qix here rather than its predecessor, Qix, the box-drawing game that may be the only title to make percentages fun. The sequel, Super Qix, relies on the gimmick of uncovering a picture as the player chips away at the game board.
Unfortunately, the game list is peppered with some pretty awful stuff amongst the winners. Some of the worst are Space Gun, a first-person alien shooter aboard a space vessel; Electric Yo-Yo, which amounts to gobbling up dots; and Plotting, a block-busting game that just doesn't pop. There is one uninspired racing game and several ordinary fighting titles. Colony 7, in which the player defends buildings from incoming missiles, is a difficult Missile Command clone, and Plump Pop, a cute game in which the player bounces an animal off a trampoline to pop bubbles in the sky, is impossible to execute with the PS2 controller.
I've found instances where the difficulty settings are a bit confounding. In Elevator Action, for example, the easy setting starts with six men and offers a free man at 10,000. The medium setting starts with three men and makes you crawl to 15,000 – too much – to earn the freebie. Neither setting seems logical. Thankfully, you can rectify this with a custom setting, but this nice feature is hampered by the fact that the game won't save high scores for games played with customized difficulty. For gamers who enjoy cheat codes, some are included in the game descriptions.
Despite some filler, Taito Legends is neck-and-neck with Midway Arcade Treasures for best retro-gaming compilation. While the few interviews with game designers aren't as fun or interesting as those of the first Midway collection, the developers deserve praise for the presentation. The interface is sleek and functional, and I'm in love with the techno menu music that's based on the steady march of the Space Invaders. It's nearly as addictive as clocking those Elevator Action baddies in the kneecaps.// The games //Battle Shark, Bubble Bobble, Colony 7, Continental Circus, Electric Yo-Yo, Elevator Action, Exzisus, Gladiator, Great Swordsman, Jungle Hunt, Ninja Kids, The New Zealand Story, Operation Thunderbolt, Operation Wolf, Phoenix, Plotting, Plump Pop, Rainbow Islands, Rastan, Return of the Invaders, Space Gun, Space Invaders, Space Invaders Part 2, Super Qix, Thunderfox, Tokio, Tube It, Volfied, Zoo Keeper// Linkage //The impressive official site, with game information and screen captures, downloads, a forum and more.// Related post //NAMCO Museum 50th Anniversary Arcade Collection
8 Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson Craig Kilborn left late night at the top of his game and with a killer arsenal of bits like Asexual Icon and To Blank with Love. I was cool on Ferguson at first, but his single-topic, stream-of-consciousness monologue is now the best in late night, and it kills me every time during the e-mail segment when he says, "Remember, if you want to e-mail me, it's Craig at the Internet slash Google dot Earthlink slash com."
