GAME CHANGE dvd

For better or worse, it's almost impossible to think about politics today without thinking about Sarah Palin.  The HBO movie Game Change, adapted from the book of the same name, takes a behind-the-scenes look at the selection, rise, and problems of this influential woman.

Game Change begins in 2008, when John McCain (Ed Harris) has just won his party's nomination for president.  Unfortunately, he trails Barack Obama by wide margins in the polls.  Campaign Manager Steve Schmit (Woody Harrelson) thinks Obama's success is a matter of style over substance and, in the era of YouTube, they need something different than another white male vice president selection to win.

Schmit's search leads him to Sarah Palin (Julianne Moore), a relatively unknown Alaska governor.  At first, she seems perfect: She's a religious, pro-life, pro-gun woman whose core beliefs will energize the Republican base.  She does a great job connecting with people on the campaign trail, her introduction at the Republican National Convention is akin to that of a rock star, and she raises massive amounts of money for the party.

Unfortunately, the quick vetting Palin recieved missed many of her problems.  She shows an amazing ignorance of politics, both domestic (not knowing what the Fed is) and foreign (not knowing Britain's politics are handled by the Prime Minister, not the Queen).  She's unprepared for the harshness of a national campaign, she's more concerned with her poll numbers in Alaska than nationally, and when she seems to outshine McCain she ignores any advice or suggestions from her campaign staff.

Much of these behind-the-scenes details about the 2008 campaign were already known -- from the original book to reports during the campaign -- so there's little that's surprising or a revelation in Game Change.  This is a pity, given the amazing quality of the acting here.  Moore doesn't just look exactly like Palin, but also brings forth her strengths and weaknesses.  With her performance, it's easy to understand both Palin's rapid popularity and the concerns she raised by anyone who got beneath the surface.  Ed Harris does a fine job making McCain the more pragmatic and experienced politician, while Woody Harrelson shines as the campaign expert becoming more and more exasperated trying to handle the vice-president pick with far more baggage than anyone expected.

The most meta scene in Game Change is when Moore-as-Palin lies in a hotel room, watching bitterly as Tina Fey-as-Palin makes fun of her on Saturday Night Live.  Game Change won't end the debates over Palin -- liberals will hail it as revealing truths, conservatives will damn it as a partisan attack -- but it is an entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the campaign -- and the person who changed politics.

(The dvd includes two too-brief features where newsmen and political strategists describe the tremendous difficulties of being in a presidential campaign.)

Overall grade: B+

Reviewed by James Lynch

MAMA

It's not easy raising kids; apparently, it's harder when a homicidal spirit has raised them for several years in the wilderness.  This is the basis for Mama, a horror movie with a few nice touches and a lot of cliches.

Mama begins promisingly enough with something different from most horror: current events.  During the stock market crash of 2007, Jeffrey (Nikolaj Costas-Waldau) cracked up, killing his bosses and wife and taking his daughters -- three-year-old Victoria, one-year-old Lily -- on a terrifying car ride on an icy road.  They crash, wander to an abandoned cabin, and Jeffrey is going to kill his kids; before he can, though, he's killed by a floating, dark spirit -- who then gives the girls food.

Jump ahead five years, and the searchers paid for by Jeffrey's brother Lucas (also played by Costas-Waldau) have found the cabin and the girls.  Victoria (Megan Charpentier) remembers a bit of society, while Lily (Isabelle Nelisse) only remembers a few words and clings to her older sister.  Lucas and his punk-rock girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain so much better in Zero Dark Thirty) take in the girls.  To keep their Aunt Jean (Kate Moffat) from taking the girls, psychiatrist Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash) arranges for a house where the family can live, and where he can interview and study the kids.

But the girls didn't come back alone.  Victoria and Lily both mention "Mama" as keeping them safe in the woods and at their new home.  Dreyfuss first thinks "Mama" is a part of Victoria's psyche, but he soon gets investigates a story of a 19th-century mental patient Victoria shouldn't know about but does.  Strange things start happening around the new house, and when Lucas is injured Annabelle becomes the surrogate mother.  And then the killing starts...

Mama works best early on, and the little kids hide and scutter about like animals as they readjust to human lives.  There are nice glimpses of something unusual going on, as the strangeness seems to happen out of the corner of the filmgoer's eye.  Unfortunately, too soon the movie becomes a series of loud noises and sudden camera close-ups, plus a fairly routine cgi critter.  The movie doesn't seem to have any consistency to its own rules (the monster kills people, or injures them, or puts them to sleep, almost at random) and the terrific feral kids are soon reduced to shrieking.  Mama starts strong, but it could have used more of its woodland element and subtle side and less of the rampaging monster.

Overall grade: C

Reviewed by James Lynch

Intel Core i3-3217U

Intel comes out with new processors at a fairly predictable pace.  The latest are the so called "Ivy Bridge" parts, which are the die shrink to the 22 nm lithography process.  This latest chip is known for its more robust integrated graphics, HD 4000 in the faster form.  I recently was looking for benchmarks on the Core i3-3217U chip, and could find little written specific to this processor.  It seems that the faster chips get more of the attention, while the more pedestrian gear is quietly launched.

ZERO DARK THIRTY

It can be tough to tell a story where everyone knows the end, but the movie Zero Dark Thirty manages to turn the hunt for Osama bin Laden into an engaging procedural of an international manhunt.

A year or two after the 9/11 attacks, CIA operative Maya (Jessica Chastain) arrives from Washington to Pakistan to hunt down every lead in order to find and kill bin Laden.  She's paired with Dan (Jason Clarke), a CIA operative who introduces her to the harsh necessities of physical and psychological torture of terrorist prisoners.  Maya soon becomes convinced that the key is finding Abu Ahmed (Tusharr Mehra), who she believes is the courier working directly with bin Laden.  There are plenty of obstacles, though, from her boss Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler) wanting her to focus more on domestic terrorism cells, to the terrorists attacks involving Maya and her team.  But she bounces around the Middle East -- mostly in Pakistan and Afghanistan -- putting together the clues and evidence that leads to the inevitable Navy Seal raid on what is now a familiar compound...

Zero Dark Thirty has become infamous for mixing fact and fiction and coming up with the conclusion that the U.S. torture of prisoners was key in getting bin Laden -- and that's an undeniable part of the movie.  Maya's initial abhorrence at seeing the way prisoners are treated soon becomes forgotten in her quest to piece together information -- what the prisoners lie about, as well as what they reveal -- and find her courier.  Indeed, characters acknowledge that they'll be taken to task for torture but they never feel any regret or remorse over doing what they felt was necessary.    

But Zero Dark Thirty is a work of fiction, and it's a credit to the movie that it feels so much like a factual account.  Director Kathryn Bigelow (who looked at the addictive nature of war in The Hurt Locker) takes us into a place where Maya's whole world is the unrelenting pursuit of what she believes is her biggest lead.  When a higher-up asks what else she's done for the CIA and she says "Nothing.  I've done nothing else," it's not an exaggeration: We know nothing about her family, friends, or life at all before her quest.  Her whole life -- from friends to world outlook -- is the hunt; even when Dan leaves to try and life a somewhat normal life, she can't think of anything but staying behind.  This world isn't glamorous (sources betray their cause for money, while coverage of real-life terrorist attacks remind us of the continual danger) but it all leads up to the final raid -- which is somehow ironic, given that all the street planning and moral sacrificed led to a clean, high-tech assault.  Jessica Chastain is terrific as the woman of absolute determination; there are a variety of actors making brief appearances (from James Gandolfini, to Mark Duplass to John Barrowman), but for all the teamwork, deals, and betrayals, it's Maya who is at the center of everything.

Zero Dark Thirty has stirred up controversy and discussion -- which is something a good movie does -- but even those who disagree with its methods will be hard pressed not to feel gripped by its unrelenting realism and pursuit of America's most wanted villain.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

John W. Campbell, WHO GOES THERE?

Ah, the terrors of the antarctic and the paranoid.  John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There?  is a classic mix of suspense and science fiction that has inspired two movies (and one prequel) and stands up pretty well today.

Who Goes There? is about the accidental discovery of the ultimate infiltrator.  A variety of scientists are working at an isolated research station in Antarctica when they stumble upon an amazing discovery: an alien creature, and its spaceship, frozen in the ice.  The scientists accidentally destroy the ship trying to remove it from the ice, but they do manage to get the frozen creature -- an evil-looking thing with three red eyes, blue skin, and tendrils for hair -- back to their camp.  After debate, the biologist Blair gets to thaw part of it out in order to perform tests on it.

Unfortunately, the next day the scientists find that the creature has escaped from its icy prison and was in the process of killing and duplicating one of the dogs when the scientists found it.  The scientists conclude that the Thing can copy its prey both physically and mentally -- and it may have already replaced one or more of the scientists.  Blair had to be locked away from the others because in his paranoia he might have tried to kill them -- but is he really paranoid if some of the humans aren't really humans, but the Thing waiting to replace them?  It's up to the other scientists to create a test to determine who's human, before the copies can conquer the remaining humans -- and leave the base to absorb and copy more and more people...

Who Goes There?  was first published in 1938, and it's easy to see how the fears it inspires remain timeless: eliminate the alien factor, and you have the question of how good, intelligent people behave when they can't trust one another and can't leave the place they are.  The dialogue can be a little stiff and the scientific "proof" of telepathy certainly feels dated, but otherwise Who Goes There? is quite comelling and suspenseful.

This edition of Who Goes There?  also includes an introduction from William F. Nolan, along with Nolan's unused screen treatment of the original novella.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

Peter David --update

Peter David is a self-proclaimed "Writer of Stuff," and that's certainly true: He's written comic books, television episodes, screenplays, movie novelizations, original novels, franchise novels, and a weekly column called "But I Digress."  Several of his writings have been reviewed here.

Unfortunately, at the end of 2012 Peter David had a terrible stroke.  Updates on his condition and recovery are being posted on his website (currently updated by his wife Kathleen) and everyone is hoping for his recovery.

In the meantime, anyone wanting to help Peter David can buy any of his books from Crazy 8 Press (the publishing imprint Mr. David co-created) or through online sites or bookstores.  It will help him with his upcoming medical bills (and doesn't hurt him as an author, either!).

And please keep a good thought for Peter David and his family.

Written by James Lynch

P.S.  Since the post, Peter David has been improving day by day, and today he was cleared to go to rehab.  Woot!

PANDEMIC

Remember when it seemed that everyone in the world was constantly washing their hands with Purell and worried about bird flu?  Well, add three diseases, have them appear and spread through the world an alarming rate, and you have Pandemic.  This cooperative game from Z-Man Games has 2-4 players working together to cure these diseases before they ravage the globe.
Pandemic is played on a board reminiscent of Risk, where major cities are connected by lines and wrap around from one side to the other.  Four diseases -- represented by yellow, red, blue, and black wooden cubes -- are breaking out and spreading through the world.  At the star of the game, three cities have three cubes, three cities have two cubes, and three cities have one cube each.  These cities are picked from cards the Infection Card pile, and their cards go in the Infection Discard Pile.  (This will become significant shortly.)

The players all select a random role, get a number of Player Cards (usually a location on the board, though sometimes a useful Special Event card) based on the number of players, and place their pawns at the Research Station in Atlanta.  On each player's turn they can perform four actions: move from one city to a connected one; discard a card from their hand to move to that city; discard the card of their current city to move anyplace on the board; discard the card of their current city to build a Research Station there; move from Research Station to another one; discard five cards with the same color to cure that disease; treat a disease in their city by removing a cube from that city; or giving another player in the same city the card for that city.  Each role has a unique benefit; for example, the Medic can remove all the cubes from a city with one action, while the Scientist only needs four cards of the same color to find a cure.  If all four diseases have been cured, the players win!  If not...

After a player takes their actions, they draw two cards from the Player Draw Pile, then act as the Infector, drawing a number of cards from the Infection Draw Pile equal to the Infection Rate (which starts at 2 and can go up to 4), putting a cube in each city and putting the cards in the Infection Discard Pile.  And if a player ever has more than seven cards, they have to immediately discard down to seven.

Then there are Epidemics and Outbreaks.  The Player Draw Pile has a number of Epidemic cards (four in an easy game, six in a normal game, eight in a hard game) that make things much, much tougher.  When an Epidemic is drawn, the Infection Rate counter goes up, then the bottom card of the Infection Draw Pile is drawn and that city gets three cubes.  Then all the cards in the Infection Discard Pile get shuffled together (including the card just drawn) and put on top of the Infection Draw Pile.  This makes an Outbreak much more likely.

Any time a city would have four cubes, it has an Outbreak.  This means every city connected to that city gets a disease cube of that color from the stockpile; and if one of those cities has three cubes, it has an Outbreak, spreading a cube from the storkpile to each adjacent city (though a city can only have one Outbreak per turn).  In addition, each Outbreak moves the marker down on the Outbreak Indicator.

There are three ways to lose, and all are very possibe.  If you ever need to draw cubes of a certain color but no more are available (usually to Outbreaks), the players lose.  If the Outbreak Indicator reaches eight, the players lose.  And if the Player Draw Pile runs out of cards, they lose.

Pandemic is a very challenging, tense, and thoughtful game.  If players focus solely on finding cures, the diseases can spread and make the number of cubes run out.  If players spend their turns getting rid of the cubes on the board, they won't find the cures they need to win.  The cards played to move around the board are same ones needed to cure the diseases, and they don't return to play once used, so card usage is critical.  (The seven-card hand limit is also a problem, as you discard cards someone else might have needed.)  And the game ending when the Player Draw Pile runs out puts a very real ticking clock in front of all the players.  Pandemic is a fun challenge for the players to work together and figure out how to win, while watching out for the multiple ways they can suddenly lose.  It's possible to think victory is assured and then find things take a turn for the much worse, and no matter how often it's played there is no one clear path to victory.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

DANGEROUS CURVES

There's a certain allue to the bad girl, and comic books are full of female villains with perfect bodies (if frequently top heavy) and revealing and/or spandex outfits.  So the folks ar Comic Buyer's Guide decided to put together a collection of these female foes, and former foes, with Dangerous Curves: Comics' Sexiest Bad Girls, a magazine-type collection of their favorite characters in this genre.  Surprisingly, the result is a little disappointing.

Dangerous Curves has a very simple format.  Each character (mostly from Marvel and DC Comics, though there are a few from independent comics) has a few sentences about them -- a brief history and their appeal -- plus two or three pictures of them from their comic book covers or inside art.  And that's about it.

So what's wrong with this simple approach to comic-book cheesecake of the villains?  For me, it's a lack of information.  The introduction warns that "We provide brief summaries of (in some cases) thousands of panels," so it's undertsandable that Dangerous Curves can't give a whole history of each character, especially those who have been around for decades.  The introduction also defines "curves" as adult and sexy, setting the tone for this as an assemblage of eye-candy.

But what constitutes a bad girl here?  There are lots of villainesses and reformed villainesses -- but not all.  Why did the Invisible Woman's brief turn to the dark side make the cut, but not those of Supergirl or Mary Marvel?  Does Storm really deserve to be here because she briefly sported a leather jacket and mohawk?  The brief descriptions don't really describe what makes these selections bad girls.

But going beyond who is and isn't on this list, there's more ambiguity.  The introduction says "The characters in this volume are our choices" -- but how many people got to choose?  Why select 60, when 50 and 100 are more common amounts for best-of lists?  How did they determine who ranked where in the listings?  And don't the folks at CBG know it builds suspense to work toward number one instead of starting there and going, by definition, downhill from there?  And couldn't they procure some original art to go along with the comic-book appearances?

Dangerous Curves is a slightly too-simple collection of comics' female eye candy (much like its predecessor from CBG, 100 Sexiest Women in Comics).  While the selections are nice to look at, the lack of more information on the selection or criteria for this work leaves it feeling a little subjective and superficial.

Overall grade: C-
Reviewed by James Lynch

DJANGO UNCHAINED

If there's a mix of fine cinema and nostalgic trashiness, there must be a new Quentin Tarrantino film.  Django Unchained is profile of the brutality of racism in the pre-Civil War south, as well as a shoot-'em-up with an ultra-cool, ultra-lethan man on a mission.

Django Unchained begins with Django (Jamie Foxx) getting recsued from a chain gang of slaves by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz).  Schultz, a German-born multilingual gentleman, poses as a dentist -- even having a stagecoach with a large bouncing tooth -- but he's a bounty hunter, focusing on finding criminals that are wanted dead or alive, killing them, and bringing their corpses in for the bounty.  He needs Django to identify the Bitter Brothers -- and once they are found and killed, he'll give Django his freedom, $75, and a horse.

But Django wants more than his freedom.  His wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), who conveniently speaks German, was sold into slavery and Django wants to find and free her.  So Schultz and Django become partners, and the trail to "Hilda" leads to Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the owner of a giant cotton plantation known as Candyland.  Assisted by an Uncle Tom manservant named Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), Calvin fancies himself a man of gentility and culture, yet he has a passion for watching black man fight to the death.

There's a wide range of things going on throughout Django Unchained.  On the one hand, this shows the brutality and inhumanity of slavery, from the tortures and treatment of people as property to the "n-word" being thrown about casually and the frequent amazement and often hostility at the sight of a black man riding a horse.  At the same time, the opening music and titles have the feel of a blackploitation film, and the movie often goes for glorified shootouts (with no sympathy for Django's victims) as bodies literally explode after being shot.

Overall, these elements make the movie a little long -- but they all work well.  While there are painful moments of cruelty and gore, there are also plenty of comic moments, from Django's overly-fancy valet costume to some wannabe Klan members complaining that they can't see through the eyeholes in their masks.  The action scenes and gun glorification are over the top, but that's tempered by Tarantino's love of scenes of one or two people talking; and the cast is terrific.  Django Unchained isn't the best Tarantino movie -- but it is pretty good.

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

WITS AND WAGERS

Trivia games have been around for ages (the most popular being the 1980s phenomenon Trivial Pursuit) -- but what happens when you add betting and odds to the mix of knowing random facts?  Wits & Wagers from North Star Games puts a nice wrinkle on the "who knows the most?" type of game by adding betting and the ability to use another person's answers.

Each player (or team of players) gets two chips in their team color, an answer card, and a dry-erase marker to write on the answer card.  At the start of a round, a question with a numerical answer is asked.  (Some questions include: How many provinces make up Canada?  In dollars, how much was Mike Myers paid to voice Shrek in the movie Shrek 2?  In what year was the electric razor invented?)  Each player/team then guesses what the answer is without going over, writing their guess on their answer card.

 

Next it's off to the Betting Mat!  Each person's guess goes on the mat.  If there are an odd number of different guesses, the middle guess goes in the "Pays 2 to 1" slot, with each higher and lower guess going on either side of the guess (and paying 3 to 1, 4 to 1, etc.).  If there are an even number of different guesses, the "Pays 2 to 1" slot is skipped.  After the guesses are placed, each player can put their two chips on two answers on the board: the same answer, two different answers, or the "All Answers Too High" slot at the end that pays 6 to 1.  A player can also put any chips they've won under their team chip, risking those chips but possibly winning much more.  After all players have bet, winning guesses get paid, losing guesses lose all their chips except the two team chips, and each player with an answer in the winning slot gets three bonus chips.  Then the answer cards are erased and the next round begins.  After seven questions, whoever has the most chips wins.

 

Wits & Wagers is a good party game: easy to explain and quick to play.  While knowing the answers certainly helps, it's just as important to know how much to risk and whose to bet on.  (I won one game because I'd risk 2-3 chips on each guess while my opponents only used their starting chips.)  As with any trivia game, there's the possibility that if you play enough times the players will know the answers just from repetition (though expansions and trivia books can take care of that problem).  Apart from that, though, Wits & Wagers is a lot of fun for casual gamers to hang out and see who can win the most chips.

 

(There's also a Party Edition of the game that has no Betting Mat.  I prefer the standard edition.)

 

Overall grade: B

Reviewed by James Lynch



BOB'S BURGERS

The dysfunctional-but-lovable family unit is a staple of television sitcoms -- especially animated ones, from The Simpsons to Family Guy -- so it's no surprise that Fox added Bob's Burgers to its Animation Domination lineup.  Fortunately, this cartoon about a regular dad trying to keep sane with a crazy family is elevated by some terrific voice talent and a dark sense of humor.

Bob Belcher (H. Jon Benjamin) just wants to raise his family and make a few bucks cooking at his restaurant, Bob's Burgers.  However, his family is fairly insane.  Youngest daughter Louise (Kristen Schaal) always wears rabbit ears, loves getting people in trouble, and is a borderline sociopath.  Middle child Gene (Eugene Mirman) fancies himself a comic and singer -- even if his material consists of fart noises on an electronic keyboard.  Teenage daughter Tina (Dan Mintz) has low self esteem and goes along with just about anything anyone says.  And Bob's wife Linda (John Roberts -- lot of men doing women's voices here) enthusiastically drags Bob into all sorts of things he wishes he didn't have to do.

Bob's Burgers is largely a series of wacky hijinks (Bob trapped in a crawlspace, the family gets hijacked at sea, the family adopting a cow) that have no bearing on any other episodes.  However, in addition to the great voicework (from H. Jon Benjamin's almost-dull everyman to Schaal's mischievous imp), Bob's Burgers has some terrific jokes.  When Bob gets trapped in the wall, it leads to a Shining parody; when they go to a music festival, there's a dead-on parody of Tori Amos.  And when the kids crash a birthday party for free cake and the mother wants to know how they know her son, their answers are "homeroom," "church," and "Desert Storm."

Bob's Burgers doesn't revolutionize the sitcom -- but it makes me laugh.  A lot.  That's pretty good for a burger joint.

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

LINCOLN

There are plenty of historical movies out there -- and most could learn from Lincoln about how to narrow their focus and make their subject gripping.

Lincoln begins after Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) has been re-elected President and is about to start his second term.  The Civil War rages on, though there are signs that the South may be ready for peace.  However, Lincoln's main focus seems to be on passing the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution -- which would abolish slavery.  Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn) wants to wait for passage until later in the President's term, when the House of Representatives won't be so closely split between Lincoln's Republicans and the bitterly-opposed Democrats.  Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) wants the amendment, but he may scare potential supporters by suggesting that "blacks" will then be given the right to vote, work as free men, and even (gasp!) have interracial marriages.  Even Mary Todd Lincoln (Sally Field) fears that the amendment may both tarnish Lincoln's popularity and extend the Civil War; and she fears their son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) will become a soldier and get killed.

Lincoln is a movie about a man navigating between two separate, monumental events simultaneously: ending the Civil War and passing the thirteenth amendment.  The political maneuverings are intense, as every single vote could make the difference and political operative W.N. Bilbo (James Spader) uses everything from appointments to bribery to swing Democrats over to supporting the amentment -- or at least voting absent.  At the same time, the war is on everyone's mind, weighing on them with the cost in American lives and the potential for more bloodshed if the amendment passes.  There always seen to be African-American people around, mostly servants or soldiers, awaiting their fate without having a say in it.  And through it all, Abraham Lincoln wanders, often telling jokes and long stories but always determined to do what he feels history and America demand of him.

Lincoln is an amazing film.  The performance of Daniel Day-Lewis is extraordinary, making Abraham Lincoln a man struggling to maintain and impose his convictions even while surrpunded by perils and doubters.  The rest of the cast is also exceptional, notably Tommy Lee Jones as the idealist whose very passion may hurt his cause but who also knows his way around politics.  This movie is adapted from the book Team of Rivals, and the focus on this pivotal part of Lincoln's life keeps the film from being a padded biopic and rather focuses the audience on the one time of tension when politics and war seemed to conspire against the President.  Director Steven Spielberg combines drama and comedy equally well, getting very human and passionate performances from the cast. Lincoln is a riveting, thoughtful, and thoroughly engrossing movie.

Overall grade: A+
Reviewed by James Lynch

THE BEST OF BURLESQUE cd

Did you know that burlesque shows began not as risque stripping entertainment but as musical and comic entertainment?  The Best of Burlesque: 50 Original Club Classics takes a more historical approach to this genre of music, offering more jazz and blues than bump and grind.

The Best of Burlesque includes a wide variety of artists -- including famous ones like Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Etta James, Louis Prima, Bo Didley, and T-Bone Walker -- performing everything from instrumental dance numbers to blues-inspired spoken-word pieces.  The striptease element is present in some of the numbers here, whether it's the iconic "The Stripper" from David Rose to the barely-concealed double entendres of songs like "My Girlfriend's a Jockey," "I Love to Ride" and "Big 10 Inch Record (of the Blues)."  However, these songs also celebrate the hip, cool lifestyle, the Playboy Club rather than Playboy as it were.  There are numerous tunes about drinking, being stylish ("Jack, That Cat Was Clean") and being cool ("Three Cool Cats").  The Best of Burlesque is as much about the lifestyle of the clubs as it is about being sexy and gettin' it on.

 

My biggest complaint with this collection is its lack of context.  While the dates for the songs are given (mostly 1940s and 1950s) and there's a small history of the burlesque scene from the 19th century to today, The Best of Burlesque doesn't provide more details on the music.  How popular were these songs?  Did they face censorship due to their often-risque lyrics and melodies?  Who influenced who?  Who performed together?  Instead, we're simply given 50 songs, not presented in chronological or thematic order.

 

The Best of Burlesque is mostly useless for those looking to perform and strip down.  It works well, though, as a sampling of the music of the cool crowd from the '40s and '50s.

 

Overall grade: B-

Reviewed by James Lynch

VICTORIA'S SECRET FASHION SHOW 2012

There are plenty of annual traditions that come about towards the end of the year -- Thanksgiving dinner, Black Friday shopping, putting up the Christmas tree, midnight mass, New Year's Eve celebrations -- but I'll go with supermodels in lingerie.  The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2012 continues this grand tradition/commercial by following the same formula as the past shows: gorgeous women, elaborate costumes, musical performances, featurettes about the shows and models, and, oddly enough, Victoria's Secret commercials during the commercial breaks.

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2012 has several themes -- Circus, Calendar Girls, Pink Ball (think pinball), Silver Screen Angels, and Angels in Bloom -- with the outfits based on each theme.  Many of the outfits include elaborate props or attachments, such as pinwheels, bicycle handlebars, and a spinning hypnotic disc; as someone comments, the shows become "more couture-y" each year, and what's modeled here is meant to inspire what's sold in the stores, not to be sold directly.

This year, featurettes include a look at the store's commercials ("five days of modelling for 30 seconds"), what dating is like for the Angels (warning: nothing that will help you or me with them), a brief look at the career of model Candice Swanepoel, and bloopers from the show.

 

For those looking for the million dollar bra, The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show upped the ante with a $2.5 million bra, worn by Alessandra Ambrosia (pictured to the left).  I can't tell the difference between it and the other bras -- must be my lack of fashion sense (or lack of millions of dollars to spend on underwear).

There are two ways to tell what musicians are popular at the moment: Check the latest Now That's What I Call Music cd and see who's performing at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.  This year the show had multiple performances from Rihanna, Bruno Mars, and Justin Bieber.  In-between the live performances there were club mash-ups of everything from the Doors' "Break on Through" to current top 40 hits.

 

Anime even made a surprise appearance, as one of the outfits was clearly inspired by the show Ranma 1/2.  (Thanks to the Topless Robot website for this bit of trivia.)

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2012 delivered what it always does: some of the most beautiful women in the world in some stunning lingerie (and some goofy "couture-y" outfits); behind-the-scenes items that are sometimes interesting (it takes a year to prepare for each show) and sometimes bathetic (does  a Victoria's Secret commercial really feature "confident, powerful women"?); live and mixed musical performances (and who knew these women had Bieber Fever?); and the information that The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was "sponsored in part by Victoria's Secret," which explains their commercials during the show.  It's sexy, it's silly, it's shamelessly commercial, it's fun -- and it's very likely coming back year.  And I can't wait.

Written by James Lynch

 

 

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TOTAL BLACKOUT

I don't think the ability to see in the dark is the stuff of science fiction amymore -- from animals with this ability to night-vision goggles -- but since the SyFy Channel shows wrestling, they might as well pretend seeing in darkness is advanced.  At any rate, this ability is the whole impetus for their game show Total Blackout.

Hosted by Jaleel White, each episode of Total Blackout has four contestants competing in total darkness for a $5000 prize; and thanks to cameras that see in the dark, we get to watch what the contestants are doing while they race with each other or try to identify things by touch, smell, etc.  After each event, the remaining contestants jump onto spaces on the floor in front of them -- with the eliminated player falling through.

I wish they'd left the lights and cameras off for Total Blackout; that way, I wouldn't have had to watch this terrible show.  The challenges to be gross and sadistic, and the final challenge has a cruel prank played on the contestants (such as telling them they'll have a live tarantula placed on them, while it's just a stuffed animal).  The contestants spend most of their time shrieking and squirming (not that I can blame them), and White provides incessant useless, annoying, and unfunny commentary during the challenges.  And "thanks" to editing, we don't see who's winning a competition until it's over and we wait for one person to jump into a pit.

Total Blackout seems designed for people who still find the Saw movies entertaining.  For those of us who like contests with intelligence, skill, or even dignity, this show is the antithesis of quality programming.  Sadly, this makes it a perfect addition to the SyFy Channel.

Overall grade: F
Reviewed by James Lynch