Another Kurosawan tour de force. Cocky young doctor learns the value of helping others; does good. Adorable young tyke, among others, saved along the way.

I’ve only made it part way through hard mode, but I’ll add my voice to the choir that has been singing the praises of Guitar Hero from all corners. I haven’t had this much fun with a rhythm game since Parappa. The satisfaction of pulling off a complicated solo, hearing the crowd go wild and collapsing exhaustedly as the game proudly proclaims that “You Rock!” is among the choicest in video gaming.

I was late to the party on this one, so I’m glad to finally get all the references. The awkwardness of adolescence could hardly be more effectively portrayed. I admired Napolean’s pluck and took pleasure in celebrating his occasional success among so many spectacular failures.

I thoroughly enjoyed this additional suite of strategic challenges from Intelligent Systems, but I could have done without all the full-motion video and excessive special effects. I suppose they felt compelled to put all that console horsepower to work, but it came at the expense of the smooth flow they achieved with their handheld versions (assuming you had the animations turned off).

Hot kung fu action, lots of bad Chinese punning, and a healthy dose of good old fashioned slapstick comedy.

A bizarre three hour marathon of a film that felt a bit like Saturday Night Live with high production values and lots of disturbingly fleshy Cronenberg-inspired “things”. I was falling out of my chair laughing at times, but those times came at the cost of long periods of baffled screen staring, and some cringing.

An amusing tale of a dysfunctional Japanese family, muddling along and try to cope as their respective neuroses create one crisis after another. They even seem to learn a lesson or two along the way and no one dies in spite of all the blood.