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A look at the biggest comics, movies, TV and video game releases for this week
By Wade Gum |
Posted July 16, 2007 9:20 AM |
MOVIES
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Friday, July 20
Rated PG-13
It’s a very scary period for any former television star: the moment when your show has ended and you must venture out into the scary world of major motion pictures. One wrong step can destroy your career and force you back onto the small screen. Just ask Chris Kattan and Michael Richards what they’ve been up to lately. Even the mighty Ray Romano tumbled with his “Welcome to Mooseport.” Kevin James is in a precarious position.
Then again, he probably doesn’t have anything to worry about. He’s in a film with Adam Sandler and Jessica Biel. The chances of this movie being a failure are about as likely as the chances of Sandler’s last movie, “Click,” being nominated for an Academy Award. Oh wait, that happened. Let’s go see this comedy about fake domestic partnerships and try to force the memory of “Click” out of our brains.
Hairspray
Friday, July 20
Rated PG
Well, if there’s one John Waters film that could have a modern remake and appeal to a family audience, “Hairspray” is certainly it. As much fun as it would have been to see John Travolta dress up like a woman in a diaper and eat eggs like in “Pink Flamingos,” this is as close as we’re going to get. The man’s career is practically indestructible. Just when you think he’s gone, along comes a “Pulp Fiction” or a “Wild Hogs” and the guy is back in your face again.
If you haven’t seen the original, it’s the touching tale of a big, sassy girl who has a dream of dancing on television. It takes place in 1962, a time when television was so boring that people would actually sit around and watch teenagers do the twist on TV and enjoy it. It seems so long ago, doesn’t it?
VIDEO GAMES
All Pro Football 2K8
Tuesday, July 17
PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
$59.99
The football game business is as cutthroat as the actual NFL. Electronic Arts scored a massive coup by locking up the official rights to all NFL games for the immediate future, locking 2K Sports out of the genre. 2K retaliated by securing the exclusive rights to Major League Baseball games, forcing EA to fall back to college baseball simulations. The only people who lose in this battle are the fans. Many people preferred 2K’s football game engine to EA’s Madden engine and were saddened to see it go. Cry no more, for 2K Sports hath returned with a new football game featuring the greatest hall of famers to ever throw a pigskin.
It might not have official NFL teams, but All Pro Football 2K8 offers players a chance to take control of such luminaries as Troy Aikman, Joe Montana, Johnny Unitas, Walter Payton, Jerry Rice and Reggie White and try to win the equivalent of the Super Bowl. Heck, this thing even has O.J. Simpson and Brian “The Boz” Bosworth in it. Madden can’t boast that type of roster, can it?
NCAA Football 08
Tuesday, July 17
Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox, PlayStation 2
$59.99–$39.99
Fans of college football can’t get enough of the NCAA Football series, but the greatest thing about this year’s release is definitely the cover. This year’s cover boy is quarterback Jared Zabransky of the Boise State Broncos. That’s the team with the fancy blue field who put on one of the greatest games in college football history in this year’s Fiesta Bowl. Through their use of awesome trick plays like the Statue of Liberty and the Hook and Lateral, they defeated the Oklahoma Sooners and won the hearts of football fans everywhere.
To further honor the Broncos, this year’s edition includes a bevy of trick plays to confound your opponents with. Now you can be a hero with the Hook and Lateral! If you’re playing this game online, expect a few dimwitted opponents to call these plays constantly and spew profanity over team-speak when they don’t work.
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 COMIC BOOKS
All Flash #1
Mark Waid (W); Karl Kerschl, Ian Churchill, Manuel Garcia, Joe Bennett, Daniel Acuña (A)
DC
Is there any superhero whose past is as convoluted as the Flash’s? At this point, it feels like one has to read an encyclopedia on the crimson crusader just to have a fighting chance at understanding what’s going on with the Speed Force and the return of Wally West. Sure, you can ask a Flash nerd like Ben Morse for an explanation, but who has 15 hours to sit and listen about a superhero who runs fast?
Apparently, a lot of people do. If the excitement over this new book is any indication, then a lot of people enjoy the Scarlet Speedster. Bart Allen is dead and many people have mixed feelings on that, but most of them are excited for the return of Wally and a brand-new direction for the Flash franchise. With Mark Waid, the Flash family is certainly in capable hands. It makes one wonder why the Flash on the cover of this issue looks so distressed. It appears that even one as fast as the Flash sometimes has to make a mad dash to the toilet after eating a Baconator.
Super-Villain Team-Up/MODOK’s 11 #1
Fred Van Lente (W); Francis Portela (A)
Marvel
There aren’t many supervillains as cool as MODOK. It’s a giant head in a Hoveround wheelchair. He’s a Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing! How can one possibly design a villain that’s any more genius in look or in execution?
The world seems to be waking up and realizing the potential of MODOK this year, as we already had the excellent issue of Marvel Adventures: Avengers in which superheroes were transformed into MODOKs. Now MODOK is getting his own series in which he recruits several supervillain brethren in order to pull off a heist of gigantic proportions. Not as gigantic as his head, but it’s still a pretty big heist.
TELEVISION
The Kill Point
Sunday, July 22
9 p.m. EST
Spike TV
John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg star in Spike TV’s newest original miniseries event. The eight-hour series kicks off Sunday with two hours of flying bullets and bank heists. A group of military veterans attempts to rob a bank in Pittsburgh, but the plan quickly falls apart. The police show up on the scene and an intense game of hostage negotiation plays out over the course of the day.
In a remarkable tie-in with other Spike TV programming, the show ends when the cops send Sheriff John Bunnell into the bank to annoy the criminals into submission with his trademark brand of smug anger.
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