You’d think that the release of a Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life Blu-ray ($14.19) would be reason enough to celebrate, especially since this is the film’s first appearance on a high-definition format. Though it was the last movie that the British comedy troupe ever made, it still has some of the funniest bits they ever committed to film. Which makes it all the more painful that Universal Home Video didn’t do a better job with it.
Beyond: Two Souls is an attempt by the French studio Quantic Dream to evolve video games beyond being just interactive versions of big dumb action movies, and into a true storytelling medium. Which is what they previously tried (and failed) to do with 2005’s Indigo Prophecy and 2010’s Heavy Rain. But while this PlayStation 3 exclusive, published by Sony, has some of the same flaws, those flaws aren’t fatal this time around, and if you’re willing to give yourself the time to get used to these shortcomings, you’ll be rewarded with a rather unique and engaging adventure.
For years, Adult Swim’s stop-motion sketch comedy show Robot Chicken has skewered everything from toys, video games, and other cartoons to movies, TV shows, and celebrities. But the reason it works so well is because it’s made by people who are big fans of the things they’re skewering. Which is good for fans of this show since it means their DVDs and Blu-rays are put together by people who know what fans of Robot Chicken would want on their DVDs and Blu-rays.
Many creative people — be they painters, poets, or piano players — look back at their older work and see things they wish they had done differently. Most just don’t do anything about it. But with Vapor Trails Remixed (CD, vinyl, digital), Rush are fixing what they regard as one of the biggest mistakes of their forty-five year career.
Since wrapping up The Matrix movies in 2003, Keanu Reeves has avoided anything to do with the martial arts. But with directorial debut, Man Of Tai Chi, and the upcoming 47 Ronin (out December 25), the once and future Ted “Theodore” Logan returns to movies in which he gets to kick people in the face.
In the South Park episode “Simpsons Already Did It,” Professor Chaos (y’know, Butters) keeps coming up with evil schemes, only to be told by his sidekick, General Disarray, that all of them have previously been done on The Simpsons.
Watching South Park: The Complete Sixteenth Season, though, it’s hard not to wish the people who put it together had watched some of The Simpsons DVDs and Blu-rays because, then maybe, they might do theirs like The Simpsons did it.
Sixteen months. That’s how long it took Blizzard to do a console version of their hack & slash action game, Diablo III. Which may be small potatoes when you consider it took them twelve years to make this sequel to 2000’s Diablo II in the first place, but still, taking sixteen months to do bring a PC game to consoles — where, it could be argued, it should’ve been all along — that’s a long time to wait.
But now that it’s finally available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with a PS4 edition due out next year, it’s hard not to think that if there was any sequel worth waiting sixteen months for, let alone a dozen years, this would be it.
With a jazz trio consisting of Steve Swallow on bass, a pianist with the last name of Bley, a horn player, and no drummer, it’s understandable that the new album Trios (ECM) by Swallow, pianist Carla Bley, and saxophonist Andy Sheppard might make some fans of dark and moody jazz think of the Jimmy Giuffre 3, the early-’60s trio which consisted of Swallow, pianist Paul Bley (Carla’s then husband), and Giuffre on clarinet. But while Trios has a similarly dark mood and palette, that’s where the similarities end.
With lots of running and jumping in a two-dimensional world so photorealistic that it looks like it’s made of wood, cloth, and Elmer’s glue, Puppeteer is going to remind a lot of people of the LittleBigPlanet games. Heck, it’s even got a British narrator. But this adorable and inventive platformer from SCE Japan Studio (which Sony is publishing for the PlayStation 3, naturally) is different enough that both lovers and haters of L.B.P. might get a kick out of it.