Blu-ray TREK!! FUTURAMA!! BREAKING BAD!! SPIDER-MAN!! GIGANTOR!! PARKER LEWIS!! HercVault!!

I am – Hercules!!

Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder, out today, turns out to be one of the more flaccid entries among these post-series DVD movies. Industrialist Leo Wong blows up Mars Vegas, sprays for eagles and pours poison cement. An injury gives Fry telepathy, so he enters a poker tourney hosted by Penn Jillette’s head. Bender falls for the girl of android mobster DonBot and steals the don’s lucky robot’s foot. Leela and Amy join gang of “eco-feminists” and spend time in stir. A league of “madfellows” sends Fry to infiltrate Wong’s organization. Bender helps Zapp Brannigan. It’s hard not to like the ending, even if it did seem to come out of nowhere. Extras: * Audio commentary by writers David X. Cohen, Michael Rowe and Patric M. Verrone, actors John DiMaggio and Maurice LaMarche, producers Matt Groening and Lee Supercinski and director Peter Avanzino (1:29:30). Notably absent is Ken Keeler, who contributed the film’s teleplay. Watch Groening praise Seth MacFarlane and Phil Hendrie. Learn that the aluminum-foil hats were texture-mapped. Learn that the commentary was recorded weeks before Barack Obama was elected president. * Storyboard Animatic: Into the Wild Green Yonder, Part 1 (22:21). Black and white drawings depict the action of the first quarter of the movie. * Featurette: Matt Groening and David X. Cohen in Space! (4:23). “Futurama’s” creators actually cavort weightlessly in a seatless jumbo jet on a parabolic flight. Cohen confesses that walking around in a spacesuit in Los Angeles elicits no reaction. * Docudramarama: "How We Make Futurama So Good" (5:09). Learn that actress Lauren Tom is the show’s only writer, voice actor and sound effects artist, and animates the entire show on a role of toilet paper. * "Louder! Louder!": The Acting Technique of Penn Jillette (2:08). Jillette, who plays the poker tourney commentator, is shown throwing his script in the trash. (Jillette’s silent partner Teller is billed in the movie’s credits, but is not seen hanging about the recording studio.) * Deleted scene: Dolomite Hill (:30). The world’s hardest rock is destroyed and replaced by Leo Wong. * Deleted scene: Matcluck (:32). Justice Scalia recognizes Bender. * Deleted scene: Paint?! (:27). Zoidberg reveals a terrible secret about the Planet Express ship’s paint job. * Deleted scene: Norbo Solo (:37). The alien anchorman is caught in a rar emotional moment. * Deleted scene: Mind Reading (:43). Fry gathers more jokey thoughts at the movie’s climax. * How To Draw Futurama In 10 Very Difficult Steps (11:10). Various artists draw various characters from the show, including Fry, Nibbler and Hypnotoad. Learn that Prof. Farnsworth’s torso looks like a lima bean. * 3D Models with Animator Discussion (4:19). We look at the construction of the CGI Genesis Planet-like asteroid, feminista VW-ish pink space-van, Kong miniature golf hole, split spaceship Nimbus and wormhole. * Bender's Movie Theater Etiquette (1:16). Bender rings and kicks the seat in front of him. * Zapp Brannigan's Guide to Making Love at a Woman (2:49). The insatiable starship captain explains, among many othe things, the advantages of dating a one-eyed woman.

The blu-ray version comes with the feature and most of the extras in HD, plus a picture-in-picture version of the commentary.

An AMC comedy-drama from writer-producer Vince Gilligan (“The X-Files”) about a dying high school chemistry teacher (Bryan Cranston) who starts a crystal-meth lab so his pregnant wife and palsy-stricken son might be taken care of following his demise, “Breaking Bad” was among my seven favorite hourlongs of 2008. It wasn’t nearly as good as “Mad Men,” but strong enough to get me excited for anything AMC decides to telecast. (If you too are a fan of this series, I beg you to Netflix or otherwise obtain Kurosawa’s samurai-free civil-servant epic “Ikiru.”) Entertainment Weekly said:

… there are some twists you'll never see coming, and Cranston gives the kind of shaded, comic-dramatic performance that always bubbled just below the surface of his manic Malcolm dad. Breaking Bad mixes desperation and deviousness to yield a volatile, valuable product.

TV Guide said:

… Grisly and wacky, suspenseful and sorrowful, this darkly compelling cautionary fable of very abnormal chemistry is infused with a Coen Brothers-like flavor of macabre humor. …

USA Today said:

… Wisely, writer/director Vince Gilligan (X-Files) uses our societal desire to keep the drug at a distance to fuel Walt's dilemma and to separate his show from the lighter, more comic Weeds. There's no doubt that death has brought Walt to life, turning him from a milquetoast to a man of action, but it also leads him into a series of terrible decisions. Bad is no advertisement for drug use or dealing; the world Walt enters is dangerous, dehumanizing and gruesome. …

The New York Times said:

… It’s the pacing that makes “Breaking Bad” more of a hard slog than a cautionary joy ride. It has good acting, particularly by Bryan Cranston (“Malcolm in the Middle”), who blends Walt’s sad-sack passivity with glints of wry self-awareness. But the misadventures of Walt and his slacker sidekick, Jesse (Aaron Paul), are a picaresque comedy filmed at the speed of a tragic opera — jokes, visual and verbal, are slowed down from 78 r.p.m. to 33 1/3 by an underlying earnestness, as if it were a foreign art film set in the American Southwest. …

The Los Angeles Times said:

… it's very good, "Breaking Bad," although as sad and disturbing as the mustache implies. (That's not to say there aren't a few laughs along the way.) …

The Chicago Tribune said:

… my recommendation -- and I do think the show is worth checking out -- is not as hearty as I'd like it to be. "Breaking Bad" reminds me of TNT's "Saving Grace," another cable series that started strong then began to fizzle soon after its promising premiere. "Breaking Bad" likewise starts out strong then loses steam, especially in its unevenly paced third episode. Yet I'm willing to give this promising show a chance, in the hopes that it will give Bryan Cranston, who plays desperate chemistry teacher Walt White, a more substantial showcase for his skills. …

The Washington Post said:

… In "Breaking Bad," Cranston does lots of coughing, a great deal of grimacing, and way too much running around in his underwear. But he also takes a tricky character and makes him believable, sympathetic and worthy of concern. … sometimes suffers from an overabundance of dialogue and scenes that stretch on too long with repetition and pauses. There are also words and actions that AMC, hypocritically enough, would probably edit out of a theatrical film being shown on the channel. As an auteurist exercise, "Breaking Bad" is several steps up from "Mad Men," the first of AMC's original efforts and the recipient of bafflingly positive reviews. … You snicker as you cringe; you wince as you laugh. "Breaking Bad" may give you an oddly gratifying case of the creeps. …

The San Francisco Chronicle said:

… very compelling and rife with potential … Watching three - of a season total of seven - episodes doesn't make it clear whether "Breaking Bad" is going to achieve the molecular shift necessary to go from intriguing to brilliant, but Sunday's premiere is a pretty stellar start.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said:

… To read this makes "Breaking Bad" sound like a comedy. It should be, and by the end of the third episode you are going to wish somebody would let in more light. But no. Instead, we have another drama taking itself far too seriously. The pilot, however, is good enough to fool a person into thinking AMC has something in "Breaking Bad," and that's largely due to Cranston's surprising performance. … Gilligan fails to give us a reason to bond with any of these characters, and their obstacles play more like excuses than hooks for our sympathies. …

The Portland Oregonian said:

… Who knew that getting into the methamphetamine business could be so inspiring? Chalk it up to the wonders of chemistry. Which also has something to do with "Breaking Bad's" engaging weave of characters and sub-cultures, and also its contrasting currents of drama and mordant comedy. … easily the most thought-provoking new series to hit the air since "Mad Men" bowed last summer.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said:

… definitely not the tour de force "Mad Men" was … has its moments of dark humor, but it's largely a morose drama that covers familiar ground: characters with anti-hero tendencies leading double lives. … Regardless, Cranston is a revelation. His performance as a mild-mannered, wildly intelligent, possibly henpecked family man is the primary reason to recommend "Breaking Bad." …

The Denver Post said:

… has the gritty sensibility of "Rescue Me," without the sex appeal. Cranston ("Malcolm in the Middle") is terrific but his character is disconcerting — Walter's illness is so top-of- mind it negates any zaniness. He is more difficult to be around than Denis Leary's tortured fireman. "Breaking Bad" may summon more humor in the future but, at the outset, it's a rather sobering experience. Surely this isn't the next-big-thing AMC hoped would follow its breakout drama, "Mad Men." …

The Boston Herald said:

… The opening shot confirms the worst. A pair of pants drop from the desert sky. A Winnebago careens crazily. A frantic Cranston yelps at the wheel, clad only in his underwear and a gas mask. Welcome to “Malcolm in the Meth Lab.” “Breaking Bad” is an uneven show about a man deep in crisis who chucks his moral compass and conversely finds his backbone once he is given a death sentence. …

The Boston Globe said:

… the show tries too hard to be socially relevant, with Walt representing a desperate middle class attempt to gain footing. So tame and worn thin by his financial lot in life and his grim diagnosis, Walt's not gonna take it anymore. You can feel creator Vince Gilligan (of "The X-Files") straining to build an emblematic American fable and forgetting to fill in his story with particularities and believable motivations. …

The Hollywood Reporter said:

… While no one expects or wants "Bad" to be an after-school special, its laissez-faire attitude toward crystal meth is a little problematic. (A brief synopsis of the third episode said Hank, the DEA agent, warns Walter's son about the dangers of drugs. However, the episode was not available for review.) That said, give Gilligan credit for a pilot, written mostly as one long flashback, that is suspenseful and surprising. Cranston is always fun to watch and "Bad" is no exception. What's more, a strong supporting cast suggests there is a lot of room for this series to grow.

Variety said:

… Series creator Vince Gilligan brings a quirky sensibility to the pilot, and the show grows increasingly rich and absorbing in the second and third hours. Whether "Breaking Bad" can ignite to become more than TV's version of a little-seen indie film, however, could be an elusive formula. … it's difficult to count this series as an unqualified breakthrough just yet. Then again, as Walt can testify about dealing with volatile ingredients, sometimes the gutsiest strategy is simply to toss them together and see what happens.

An eight-episode Australian mockumentary series that looks at the faculty and students at a Melbourne high school, HBO’s “Summer Heights High” was masterminded by a fellow named Chris Lilley, who plays a drama teacher and two of the students. It was a huge hit Down Under. While Lilly’s ability to disappear into his three characters is admirable, I can’t say I found a lot of funny in the first four episodes. I got a good laugh at delinquent Jonah’s foul apology to a tiny red-haired kid in the first episode, but by episode two I already found myself numbed to Jonah’s casual barrages of vulgarity. Not a lot of new comedy ground gets broken. Lilly’s drama teacher character is to Corky St. Clair what Mohinder Suresh is to Seth Brundle. Which it to say not as good but with a different accent. The Hollywood Reporter said:

… has all the ingredients for a hilarious mockumentary without the benefit of actually being funny … Lilley himself has moments of inspiration but far too few, falling back on easy stereotypes that quickly grow tedious. … The inescapable conclusion: them Aussies are far too easily entertained.

Variety said:

… One newspaper dubbed Chris Lilley "Australia's answer to Ricky Gervais" -- a comparison that, alas, is funnier than almost anything in this mockumentary fished up from Down Under. … seldom rises above silliness and mostly proves just plain irritating. …

The New York Times said:

… But are they funny? … I suspect that a lot of American viewers will be inclined to ask what all the fuss was about. …

The Los Angeles Times said:

… all in all, it's a rich work, full of detail and small moments, and grounded in reality by an utterly believable supporting cast partly drawn from the school where the series was shot. …

The Washington Post said:

… starts slowly -- but builds. Eventually, even farcical characters inspire emotional investment. It's cringe comedy, with suspense growing out of how mortifyingly the three main characters -- a drama teacher, a girl who's transferred from private school and an incorrigible sociopath -- will humiliate themselves. …

The San Francisco Chronicle said:

… The documentary look is engaging, and Lilley's wildly over-the-top performance as three distinct characters is made all the more funny as it clashes against the reserved nature of the nonactors. … niftily overcomes its familiar premise to bring fresh laughs to these shores.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said:

… Fans of character comedy may get a kick out of the "Summer Heights High." You just have to go in expecting to smile occasionally or maybe chuckle. It's not the kind of comedy that will produce big laughs.…

The Boston Globe said:

… hysterical … gives us an idea of what Christopher Guest, creator of spoofs such as "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show," might come up with if he were to make a TV comedy series. …

The Newark Star-Ledger said:

… in comedy, which is more important: versatility or the simple number of laughs? Much as I admire Lilley's ability to pull off a sort of one-man Christopher Guest movie, only one of the three "Summer Heights High" leads is funny on a consistent basis. … Lilley's obviously a talent, but for his next project, I'd like to see how he plays with others.

Time Magazine said:

… quite funny. …

Entertainment Weekly said:

… Brilliant! …

“Moriarty” said:

… very, very funny. … I hope people give this one a try over the next seven weeks, but I sort of wish they’d held onto it to pair with Jody Hill’s EAST BOUND AND DOWN starring Danny McBride. I think they could have made one of the most piercing hours of comedy in recent television memory. …

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