The Time Machine Tour (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)I need not proclaim or laud Hayes for his musical talent or artistic evolution. It is 2008; either one knows of Darren and finds him a genius or, as has been the case with most of my peerage, he's an undiscovered gem. For those in the latter category, this is an *excellent* stone from which to step. On this superbly captured closing night of The Time Machine Tour, Darren Hayes does that which so many of his fans thought wholly impossible: he improves upon perfection.
My advice to you?
Buy this DVD; see the man in all of his glory; build your own time machine (or, if you'd rather, simply put the disc on "repeat") so that you can relive the wonder.
WHAT'S MASTERFUL --
+ Hayes's fantastically unique (and well-trained) voice
+ The tour's beautifully designed video projections
+ Darren's energy & enthusiasm
+ The simple yet stylish choreography
+ The crew's lighting design
+ The artist's larger-than-life (not to mention disco-fied) paper crane
WHAT'S MEDIOCRE --
- The disc's "extras"... or lack thereof
- The number of costume changes (one)
WHAT'S MISCARRIED --
X Darren's almost anti-climatic entrance
X The fact that Amazon.com doesn't post a set-list (I'll help you out with this one :D)
The Set-List (in order of performance)
The Future Holds a Lion's Heart
Who Would Have Thought
Waking the Monster
How to Build a Time Machine
Neverland
Insatiable
On the Verge of Something Wonderful
Listen All You People
The Best Thing
The Only One
Void
Darkness
Step into the Light
I Like the Way
Words
Casey
So Beautiful
I Want You
Affirmation
Me, Myself & I
The Great Big Disconnect

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After touring constantly for 12 months, Darren Hayes is about to release a stunning live concert DVD of his most ambitious and critically acclaimed concert tour to date : The Time Machine Tour.Quietly selling out London s prestigious Royal Albert Hall, Hayes audaciously toured a show that had more in common with Pink Floyd than American Idol.The show, designed by legendary U2 and Rolling Stones designer Willie Williams featured, amongst other things, a 24 foot animatronic steel and neon origami bird and set pieces straight from a Jules Verne novel.The DVD marks the completion of a project that has seen Hayes graduate from pop star to label head and CEO of his own independent record company.A year before the likes of Radiohead decided to snub major label EMI, Hayes had announced plans to go it alone via his own label Powdered Sugar releasing his double album This Delicate Thing We ve Made with little fanfare. Just great songs, intricate art piece music videos and a blistering live band.Accountants, managers and suits and ties advised him against spending so much of his own money on such a show. But Hayes famously ignored them and took the elaborate production all over the UK and Australia. The DVD was shot in his hometown of Brisbane Australia on the final night of the tour.''This was the tour I've always dreamed of. Bowie and Peter Gabriel made the blueprint for this type of rock theatre and although it sounds morbid, doing a show like this was one of my before I die wishes. I simply had to do something like this once in my life and I couldn t think of a better moment than this period to try'', Hayes said.Costume design stitched by makers from the Royal Shakespeare Company and set pieces by the folks who put U2 in a Lemon and George Michael in front of the largest video screen ever built the show was a spectacle that had to be seen to be believed.

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Pushing Daisies: The Complete First Season (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)Alternately funny and whimsical, PUSHING DAISIES is a visually distinctive romantic comedy that encompasses a truly winning mix of ingredients. With its modern fairy tale settings and exploding color schemes - along with perfect but unobtrusive narration by Broadway veteran Jim Dale - comparisons to the work of Tim Burton are all but unavoidable. (In a good way.)
As in his previous outing (DEAD LIKE ME), series creator Bryan Fuller explores the great beyond but this time the results are much more impressive. The entire series centers around Ned (an utterly charming Lee Pace), who - at an early age - discovers that he possesses the power to bring the dead back to life with just a touch of his finger. The tradeoff? If he touches that person again, they will remain dead forever. And leaving the dead resurrected for longer than a minute causes someone else in the immediate vicinity to die. Cruel? Perhaps. But the universe demands a cosmic balance - and this is its solution.
Ned - the owner of a fairly successful pie shop known as `The Pie Hole' - uses his unique gift to earn a living in two ways: His astonishing pies, where his special touch invigorates the fruit with incredible flavor; and helping a detective (Chi McBride), who accidentally witnessed Ned's gift first-hand, solve murder cases. How? He revives the victims long enough to find out who killed them and then the two of them split the reward money. This can, and usually does, lead to near dangerous adventures for the two of them. Sounds exciting - but as Ned's co-worker Olive (the adorable Kristin Chenoweth of Broadway's WICKED) points out, it's a detached, emotionally frigid existence.
That is, until Charlotte enters his life again.
Charlotte or "Chuck" as she is called (played by Brit actress Anna Friel), is the girl Ned loved as a child before she moved away. When Ned and the detective discover the murdered Chuck on one of their cases, Ned brings her back to life for a sizable reward but can't bring himself to kill her, creating this dilemma: Although Ned and Chuck are strongly drawn to each other, they can never, EVER touch.
PUSHING DAISIES is loaded with stars from film, TV and the stage (Paul Ruebens, Raul Esparza, Molly Shannon, Swoosie Kurtz, Ellen Greene, Christopher Seiber, Barbara Barrie, Grant Shaud - to name but a few), and it's clear that everyone is having a marvelous time. The series is filled with tons of clever touches and Lee Pace, full of childlike vulnerability, is an immensely likable lead. His palpable longing for Anna Friel's Chuck is both sweet and touching. Seldom, however, has a series predicated on keeping two characters romantically apart established such a seemingly insurmountable barrier to insure that they remain that way.
As long as the creators can sustain the high level of entertainment that the first (as of this writing) nine episodes have provided, one can only pray that this highly original and gorgeous looking television experiment keeps going for years to come.


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Every not-so-often, along comes a show that's different. Wonderfully different. Pushing Daisies, TV Guide's Matt Roush writes, "restores my faith in TV's ability to amuse, enchant and entertain." It's the story of Ned, a lonely pie maker whose touch can reanimate the dead. Cool, but there's a hitch. If Ned touches the person again, the miracle is reversed. If he doesn't, a bystander goes toes up. What to do? Easy: Team with a private eye, bring murder victims back just long enough to discover whodunit, and collect the rewards. Things go well until Ned's boyhood sweetie is the next dear departed, and he can't resist bringing her back for keeps! Dig the wit, style and quirky romance: If you're not laughing, you may need a visit from Ned.

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The Wire: The Complete Third Season (2004) Review

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(More customer reviews)HBO have at long last, decided to release this on DVD and thank goodness. The Wire is undoubtedly the best TV around these days since "Homicide: Life on the Street". No surprise then, I guess that the same man (David Simon) had/has a big hand in both series.
Unlike most crime/cop shows that have a beginning, middle and end in the one episode, the story here is spread over the entire series. We're seeing stuff that kicked off in Season 1 still developing in Season 3. Some viewers find this challenging - this certainly isn't a show you can watch while cooking dinner or chatting to your buddies on the phone. It's sad that ratings have dropped though because if you give the show the undivided attention it deserves and focus on the story, complex as it is, the rewards are truly immense.
After the drama on the docks that was the main focus of Season 2, Season 3 takes it back to the streets where we most like it. The Baltimore drug wars rage on, with Avon Barksdale, played by Wood Harris, out of jail to find his territory of corners under threat from young & ruthless upstart, Marlo, played utterly convincingly by Jamie Hector. Stringer Bell has held things down while Avon's been away but his methods have been questionable, to put things mildly. Stringer gets his comeuppance this season though and as much as I hated the character - and admired Idris Elba for playing it so well - I honestly didn't see his comeuppance coming in the way it eventually did. Scorching scriptwriting!
The police are desperately trying to keep up. Major "Bunny" Colvin, played by Robert Wisdom, comes up with the 'brilliant' idea of creating a 'safe zone' for drug sale and use in the city and this area gets dubbed Amsterdam. The plan seems to work - the rest of the city suddenly becomes a haven - but Colvin keeps the project from his superiors. The results are disastrous, for him and for the city.
Meanwhile, the detail is back on the hunt and as we watch them chase their tails, the questions left hanging in the air are what is this so-called war on drugs about, exactly? And who is winning?
In the background, meanwhile, there's scheming, wrangling and backstabbing in the corridors of the city political powers. Unlike the stuff on "The West Wing" this is the kind of politics I can get into and this is a story that is going to run and run.
Like any TV show, this one has its 'stars' but this is truly an ensemble performance. Everyone, whether it's by playing a starring role, a recurring role, bit part or even an extra, gets to contribute a crucial part of the jigsaw that makes up the big picture.
Still, I must mention some of my favourite performers. Apart from those already mentioned, they include: Lance Reddick, an actor with the ability to convey more with a single look than most actors can with a whole minute of dialogue, as Lieutenant Daniels; Dominick West, who plays Detective Jimmy McNutly, a cop who races to save the world while his own life crumbles around him; Sonja Sohn, who plays Detective Kima Greggs, McNulty's loyal partner, who realises she's not as ready for a life of domesticity with her girlfriend and their baby as she had originally thought; Andre Royo, who plays Bubbles the 'co-operative' drug fiend with heart; Michael K. Williams, who plays Omar the gay gangster with a shotgun - something I never thought I'd see on TV in my lifetime; Frankie Faison and John Doman who play Commissioner Burrell and Deputy Commissioner Rawls respectively (for some reason, neither fails to make me laugh out loud with every line they deliver); Michael Hyatt, who plays Brianna Barksdale, mother of D'Angelo (who was murdered in Season 2) and sister to kingpin Avon; and last but by no means least, the 'dynamic' duo Detectives Herc and Carver, played wonderfully by Dominick Lombardozzi and (the beautiful) Seth Gilliam respectively.
And then there's Chad L. Coleman as Dennis "Cutty" Wise, the ex-con who finds he no longer has the stomach for the streets. He turns to volunteering, running a youth boxing gym. Here's an actor to look out for and he brings an intensity to his role that I found mesmerising. I hope we get to see more of him in future Seasons.
This is a totally believable drama with cracking dialogue and nary a cliche or stereotype to be seen. The reactions to the show, both positive and negative just go to show how a gritty and realistic drama series can hit home.
This is a must for any connoisseur of mature and thought provoking TV. This is one show that takes a long, unapologetic and uncompromising look at an underclass we would all prefer to ignore and thus, while it's not always pretty, it is always riveting. If you don't have seasons 1 & 2, I recommend you get them now. This one of very few shows I am able to watch over and over and not get bored, learning and appreciating something new each time. I am placing my pre-order for Season 3 forthwith!


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The heat is on in Baltimore. The drug war is being lost, bodies are piling up, and a desperate mayor wants the tide turned before the election. But the police department hasn't got any answers. With the demolition of the Franklin Terrace towers, Stringer Bell and the Barksdale crew have been forced to improvise. But no matter how hard McNulty and the detail try, the dealers always seem to be one step ahead of the game. DVD Features:Audio CommentaryEpisodic PreviewsEpisodic RecapsOtherAudio Commentary:Five audio commentaries with creatorDavid Simon, director Joe Chappelle, writers Richard Price and George Pelecanos, and producers Karen L. Thorson and Nina K. NobleInterviews:Q&A with David Simon and Creative Team, Courtesy of the Museum of Television & Radio Conversation with David Simon at Eugene Lang Collete, The New School for Liberal Arts

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The Mighty Boosh: Season 2 (2009) Review

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(More customer reviews)Goodbye, Zooniverse. Hello life of yetis, deranged sea hermaphrodites and musical glamour!
And so unsurprisingly, things continue to be utterly strange and deranged in "The Mighty Boosh: Season 2" even when our wacky protagonists have left their old jobs at the zoo. I can't help but miss some of the freakish side-characters of the previous season, but the visual bizarrities, freak-show plots and surrealist details keep things utterly amazing from start to finish.
Howard Moon (Julian Barratt) and Vince Noir (Noel Fielding) are living in a flat with Naboo the mystic and the talking ape Bollo, and are apparently trying to launch a music career. Howard does the music, Vince does the costumes.
In the first episode, a soul-killing trip to a mountain cabin is interrupted by the deranged hick Kodiak Jack (who immediately develops a huge crush on Vince). Too bad they're also in danger from a bunch of breeding Yeti, and Howard inadvertently ends up in their hands. Paws. Whatever. And during Vince and Howard's search for a new psychedelic musical sound before the deadline, Naboo tells them a strange story of Rudi and Spider ("Feel the power of my fusion lick!").
Then an age crisis sends Vince and Howard to Naboo's home planet to find the Fountain of Youth, but run afoul of the Hitcher and the Xooberon Tribe. An attempt to impress some goth girls ("Goth Juice, most powerful hairspray known to man... made from the tears of Robert Smith") causes disaster when Vince uses Naboo's "hardcore" black magic book to summon the evillest evil demon Nanatoo, who looks a lot like a little old lady and clones herself... meaning they're faced with Nanageddon!
And after a horrendous gig, Howard accidentally reels in the deranged sea hermaphrodite known as Old Gregg -- and ends up not only Gregg's captive, but the unwilling subject of his amorous intentions. Additionally, Gregg has The Funk... and Howard wants it. And a boat trip to the US goes horribly wrong when the boys end up marooned on a distant tropical island (Vince trimmed the captain's hair), where the boundaries of reality and fantasy start to blur. Fear the coconuts.
"The Mighty Boosh" is your basic average sitcom... on enough acid to fry its colorful little brains and send it flying across the universe on Naboo's magic carpet. This is a universe where the moon regularly says weird and nonsensical things, an extraterrestrial shaman and a talking gorilla live in the next room, and random music references abound (ranging from the Cure to Kings of Leon) -- and these aren't the weirdest things that go on.
As if the plots weren't surreal enough, Barratt and Fielding swathe the entire series in a sort of whimsical weirdness. Lots of strange dialogue ("I've got a strong feeling the Tudour look's gonna come back in while we're away. I don't want to get left behind!"), toilet humor (naturally), bizarre life-forms (Yetis! Coconuts! Old Gregg and his... oh, I can't say it!), weird outfits for Vine (the mirror-ball suit!) and a casual acceptance that anything can and will happen.
Barratt and Fielding are also quite awesome as a sort of surreal Odd Couple -- Barratt is great as a sort of lame-duck aspiring Artiste unaware of his intense uncoolness, while Fielding is deliciously over-the-top as a foppish, androgynous sort who changes his personal style every time it suits him (including renaming himself "Obsidian" to impress a pair of stereotypical goth girls). Michael Fielding also gets a good supporting role as too-mellow-to-not-be-taking-chemicals shaman-alien Naboo, who unfortunately is the smart one here.
"The Mighty Boosh Season 2" will leave you missing the Zooniverse, but it's still a brilliantly bizarre twist on your usual sitcom. Absolutely a must-see, for those who like to see the boundaries stretched, snapped, and doused in paint.

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MIGHTY BOOSH:COMPLETE SSN2 - DVD Movie

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Friends - The One with All Ten Seasons (Limited Edition) (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)for those of us who've bought all 10 seasons as they've been released: if you've been eyeing that nice collector's box but don't want to shell out another $200, there'a a coupon for JUST the box in the 10th season set! the box is only $20 including shipping.

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A must-have gift for the avid Friends fan! Friends: The One with All Ten Seasons includes all ten seasons from the groundbreaking series, in a limited edition collector's box.

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