2007-12-21

Prepare To Be Reviewed

Futurama: Bender’s Big Score

It’s back baby! And its about freaking time.

But first, a bit of history. Ever since Fox first put Futurama on the air, I always had the feeling that the Brainless Corporate Retards™ running the network not only had no idea what they had, but no idea what the hell to do with it. Ultimately I would once again be proved right!

Futurama’s original time slot, sandwiched between ratings monsters, The Simpsons, and The X-Files was the best place for it. It was getting great ratings, good buzz, and Emmy nominations to boot. All signs pointed to a long, successful run, one day even taking over the coveted Simpsons time-slot one day.

So the genius at Fox Corporate decided to move it. Two or three times, never letting the viewing public know when or where the show might turn up next, until they eventually sticking the show with the murderous Sunday at seven time-slot head to head against 60minutes. That is if it wasn’t pre-empted randomly by football, or baseball, or whatever crappy Fox Sunday Movie they decided to cram onto the slot. Then they wondered why Futurama wasn’t getting the ratings they wanted it to.

I can see why these Fox execs make the kind of money they do, what with their fingers being so far from the pulse of what is hip, edgy, witty, and cool. So far from the pulse of pop culture, one might think their fingers were mostly shoved up their collective asses!

This all changed one day when the single brain-celled collective known as Fox Corporate noticed that Futurama, a show they despised, kicked in the nuts, then unceremoniously cancelled, was getting HUGE ratings in syndication on the Cartoon Network in the USA and Teletoon in Canada, oh and it was also making them HUGE BANK in DVD sales worldwide. So, with caps in hand they crawled back to Matt Groening and David X. Cohen and begged them to make a deal.

The result is a four DVD deal, the first of which is Bender’s Big Score. Oh man, what can I say about this apart from YES!!!! This is what Futuramafan™ has been waiting for since those idiots cancelled the show.

The whole cast returns for this feature length film that finds the earth conquered by a group of naked alien identity thieves. Without giving too much away, the Planet Express™ crew get naked, the secret of time travel is revealed (on Fry’s ass), and Leela meets the only man she will ever love.

The DVD includes an awesome commentary featuring Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, and many others. The picture has a sharp 16x9 enhanced transfer, and a decent Dolby 5.1 surround mix. Disc One extras include a live comic book reading by the cast, a full-length episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, deleted storyboard scenes, 3-D turnaround models, and a heap of other things. Disc Two extras include storyboard animatics, layout animatics, and a preview of volume 2: “The Beast With A Billion Backs.”


For being everything I want it to be and more, Futurama: Bender’s Big Score gets a Five out of Five. Disc extras also get a Five out of Five, which makes this a definite BUY!

Go get it. NOW!!!

2007-12-05

TechNoSavy


Hunter leaned in between the two choads sitting at the bar and signaled his buddy, Bartender Ian, for another round. The choad to his left winced visibly and blew his cigarette smoke in Hunter’s general direction. Hunter rolled his eyes thinking: what a stupid fuckhead, when the drinks arrived. Left choad gave Hunter’s elbow a bump as he was backing up with the three pints in his hands, causing a minor spillage.

“Come on! If you can’t hold your pints get the fuck out of here!” Left Choad growled, feeling suddenly tough now that Hunter’s hands were full.

Hunter thought of dumping the drinks on him, but that would be a waste, instead he just let go a string of expletives at him, the crackling of the smokeater punctuating his every word.

“Look you filthy, cocksucking turd, just because its your fucking time of the month is no reason to be a total prick! So either shut your noise tube, or I’ll shut it for you!”

Left Choad just stared for a second, unable to speak. Right Choad, who was clearly a friend of Left Choads, but was talking on his brick-like StarTac(TM) mobile phone, suddenly started to take an interest.

Hunter turned and put the pints down on the counter beside the booth where he and his droogs, Bill Williams, and Fred Sharpe were stuck in for the night.

Bartender Ian called out from behind the bar: “Everything okay Hunter?”

“I dunno,” said Hunter, turning to Left Choad, “is there?”

Left Choad looked around and shook his head.

“Didn’t think so.” Said Hunter, returning to the drinks at hand.

He sat down at the table and continued on with the conversation the he and his droogan brothers were having before they ran out of beer.

“So, they’re called DVD’s and – “

Bill cut in, “Dee Vee Deez? Any relation to Rick Dees?”

“One might think so, but no. Yeah, so Digital Versatile Discs is what the acronym stands for. They’re like the size of CD’s but you can fit a whole movie on them without flipping it over.”

Fred took a sip of his draught and shook his head, “Won’t last. Can’t record on them. It’ll be just another fad, like your LaserDiscs.”

Hunter swallowed some ale, “How can you say LaserDiscs are a fad? They’ve been on the market for over ten years! They’re HUGELY popular! Video and Sound’s whole store is basically Laser movies with the few crappy VHS tapes they have left shoved in the back of the store! And that’s just one place in town!”

“Who here even has a LaserDisc player besides you anyway?” Bill wanted to know, taking a drag off his DuMaurier King Size.

Hunter didn’t need to take a second before answering, “MacGreggor of course.”

Fred stubbornly shook his head as he put out his Player’s Light, “Nope. MacGreggor isn’t here with us tonight. He doesn’t count!”

“Oh… “

“Nope!”

“…come…”

“Nope!”

“…on!”

“Nope!”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Nope! Go back to Gutamala, Tech Monkey!” Fred continued.

“Alright enough, the both of you!” Bill grumbled.


Hunter took a long draught of ale and stared at Fred, “And it’s Technogeek okay? Get it right.”


There really was no time for arguing, as there was some serious drinking to be done...

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