Maybe if the climate in the music industry was different LinkinPark’s departure from their tried and true rap-rock sound would come through better. Maybe if fans were more akin to such a drastic change in style, and an almost abandonment of what made them great in the beginning Minutes to Midnight would be welcomed with open arms by the legions of fans who made Hybrid Theory one of the biggest albums of the last 10 years. Instead LinkinPark’s ballad-laden, political outcry is neither welcome nor accepted and this eagerly awaited album falls upon disappointed ears.

There’s such a change from Hybrid Theory and its continuation into Meteora that the sound we’d come to universally charge to LinkinPark is gone. Left by the wayside is back-up vocalist and lead rapper Mike Shinoda who is negated to two tracks on the new disc, each really lacking the punch you’d come to expect from such an explosive rock group.

Truth be told, Midnight is a slow trotting, ballad-riddled mess with no consistency between tracks, no flow. As you break out of the high-intensity “Given Up“; you go back and forth between Shinoda rapping, the pre-packed single “What I’ve Done“; and lead vocalist Chester Bennington’s screeching emo-ballads as the album gets stuck in second gear, barely able to make it up to any speed you’d attribute to Linkin Park, like an engine half rebuilt which runs, just not firing as hard, or as intense as you’d like.

Its seems ironic now that the critical plague cast upon Meteora was the fact that it sounded too much like Theory only to have the different sound of Midnight and the longing for more of the same be the ultimate undoing of this new outing. There’s so much the fans want to see in this new album only to be thoroughly disappointed by what feels like an entry waiting to get going and ends before it really can. Even true fans of the band will see the faults in this new release, and one can only hope that LinkinPark’s inevitable follow-up will return them to their tried-and-true roots and leave the sorrow behind.

The Starter Wife, a limited run mini-series, starring Debra Messing and premiering Thursday, May 31 on USA Network is an adaptation of the New York Times bestseller of the same name by Gigi Levangie Grazer. The series takes a cynical look at the Hollywood underbelly and social circle memberships which are vied for by all based on who you are and who you’re married to and how divorce in this life could mean your end, if you let it.

The adaptation is a great melding of drama mixed with clever writing creating a black comedy tone throughout including a forecasting dream Molly Kagan taking place on the yellow-brick road complete with an evil wizard in the form of Molly’s soon-to-be-ex Kenny (Peter Jacobson). There’s definitely some substance to the comedy here with more than a few laugh-out-loud moments propelled by Messing’s abilities.

Debra Messing is the real star of the series in the scenes USA provided for preview as her experience in comedy, starring in Will & Grace, truly shines her as she embodies the role of Molly and her never falter, keep-your-head-up mentality as she struggles with the reality that she is, in fact, a starter wife and sees her life disappear around her. This doesn’t’ stop her, however, from living.

The supporting cast also performs admirably including Joe Mantegna, Judy Davis, and Miranda Otto among others in the little bits available for preview. Unfortunately the screener provided doesn’t show a wide range of the supporting characters, instead focusing on Messing’s centerpiece.

It seems almost unheard of, after reading the premise of the series, that a twentysomething male editor would find something to like in The Starter Wife, but the script is tight and if the scenes previewed are any indication, the six-hour series has a lot to offer both sexes.

The Starter Wife premieres Thursday, May 31 at 9/8c on USA Network.

Star Wars long ago evolved from a modest budgeted space story to verifiable billion dollar franchise, but as the well-aging series reaches 30 years young this year a new development is being brought to the attention of the common movie fan. For years Star Wars parallels to the classic Greek stories, Joseph Campbell’s definition of a hero, and to even the Bible have been constant fodder for film history classes around the globe. After all, how many high school students can identify Shakespeare over Lucas?

There’s so much to this franchise, from the classic archetype characters to the way even the most minor character inherits major rolls in the end that there’s no better way to celebrate the birth of the space opera than a Memorial Day special. The History Channel’s Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed brings this information to the non-film historian, and just like the series that inspired it, its an entertaining run around the galaxy.

Presented in the standard, clips & talking head format, The Legacy Revealed focuses on all six movies in the Star Wars saga via interviews with some of the biggest geeks in Hollywood (Kevin Smith), political figures (Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi), comedians (Stephen Colbert), and film experts as they talk about personal experiences relating to the events of Star Wars and its tragic hero who comes full circle to die a righteous death in the end. How the sins of the father transfer to the son and how the classics come alive with a lightsaber and a dash of influence from all over the globe.

For a viewer who has never experience a history lesson detailing how Star Wars can be interpreted so many different ways, the two hour program is an engaging, informative look at just how deep the saga truly goes. Whether Lucas intended for the series to really be analyzed so perfectly when he wrote out the movies, or whether or not the imagery used is mere coincidence or something bigger may never be known, but regardless of how it came to be, this franchise has spawned a rabid fan base and a plethora of analysis.

The special works incredibly well by breaking down each section with a great degree of focus and analyzes sidekicks, comic relief, the mentor, the hero, and the damsel as each one of these components, combined together, creates the classic story you may even realize you know.

As director Peter Jackson puts it in the program, “You don’t even have to ask, ‘Will it stand the test of time?’ It has and it will.” Who knows what we’ll be looking at in retrospect when Star Wars turns 60 as we zoom around in our flying cars and dream of Star Destroyers orbiting the planet. Did Lucas write our history and direct inventions and technological advancement for decades to come? We’ll find out over the next 30 years, but until then, the classic story of a hero is well embodied in the most popular space opera ever written.

If the first two big sequels of the summer movie season are any indication, things are not looking good for the latest entries in the Pirates, Die Hard, and Rush Hour franchises as both Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third have disappointed with substance but taken the box office crowns each and every week. Things may look up though, for first entries into many franchises like the Michael Bay-directed Transformers and The Simpsons Movie, but with a nosedive in quality here in the first month of the season, one can only hope reprieve is at hand for us all.

Shrek the Third is just not a funny movie; it’s an animated comedy about an ogre who doesn’t want to be king and sets out to find the next heir, thereby shunning his job on to a young boy, Arthur (Justin Timberlake). Although after rolling in the allies during the COPS sequence in Shrek 2, there were high hopes that Mike Meyers and company would be able to top themselves in every respect, unfortunately this did not happen, so instead of another Wayne’s World, we’re left with Wayne‘s World 2, and we’re not happy about it.

The entire cast returns to reprise their voice rolls this time around which finds the aforementioned Shrek (Mike Meyers) seeking out Arthur to become rightful king of Far Far Away. Dastardly Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) has other plans as he organizes all the fairy tale villains to siege the kingdom and crown himself king after the death of Princess Fiona’s (Cameron Diaz) father.

Unlike the second film, the pop-culture jokes have been toned way back, with only a few shout-outs to Foot Locker and other small chains instead of the massively funny montage scene from the second film. Even the slapstick humor that set up the series in the original Shrek has been toned back, there’s very little social commentary, all in all it feels as though the series has lost that spunk, that fire that made it so popular with kids and adults alike in its previous two installments.

Sure, there are still a few moments where you’ll find yourself laughing, the Gingerbread Man’s life flashing before his eyes is priceless, but the fairy tale characters that played such an important role lampooning themselves and the Disney-treatment they’ve gotten over the last 60 years is sadly missing from this installment in the series.

So yet another third installment and yet another disappointment, it’s almost feeling like studios should go right to number four after two as three just might be a tad unlucky. Even for true fans of the series, Shrek the Third comes out smelling like an un-showered ogre.

Warning this review contains plot spoilers.

Almost like a loosely written comedy, the writers and producers of Spider-Man 3 choose to include as much material as possible gathered from the comic books, throw it at the wall, and see what stuck with the audience. All we are treated to in the end is an entertaining, albeit unfocused comic book film which tries to cram too much into its 145 minute runtime and doesn’t leave you feeling with the sense of conclusion you were hoping for.

If one was to gather any indication of a film’s quality from its first trailer we should have seen this coming, Spidey 3‘s initial teaser was a jumbled, underwhelming mess that certainly didn’t promote the biggest adventure for the web-slinger on the big screen.

It isn’t that Spider-Man 3 is a bad film; it just tries to do too much. In the span of two-and-a-half-hours we see the origin story for Sandman, the Venom symbiote crash to Earth and “infect” Peter Parker, a love triangle between Parker, Mary Jane and Gwen Stacy, Harry Osborne go from bad, to good, pretending to be good but still bad, then good again, Eddie Brock becoming Venom, and it just goes on and on. In an industry where many time critics complain about a lack of plot, this film goes into the opposite spectrum and tries to give too much to the fans.

Sure there will be fanboys all around who are practically drooling for another chance to see the black-suited Spider-Man toll around New York, or Venom appear on the big screen, but there was so much that could have been excised from the final cut of Sam Raimi’s picture that there’s almost two movie’s worth of material here. Even with all the plot thrown in here the Sandman character feels completely unnecessary, and his inclusion seems more as a way to take the focus away from Venom and Harry’s follow-in-your-father’s-footsteps-brooding.

It was nice to see how the black suit affected Parker, but his over-the-top emo look (ripped straight from an AFI concert) was a bit over the top, and his “jazz” routine near the end of the film’s second act is more of a distraction than really relating to anything pertinent.

The best part of the film is actually the short cameo by cult-actor Bruce Campbell, this time as a French maître d’ who steals each and every scene he’s in.

Spider-Man 3 is going to make a lot of people happy, it’s an entertaining film that puts the web-crawler on the big screen to finish up an initial trilogy, but like the original Star Wars trilogy, the third installment ends up being the big disappointment after a spectacular second chapter. After it’s all said and done, you’ll see the film again and again because its pure Hollywood popcorn, but you won’t come away from the movie like you did the first and second installments with a huge anticipation of the next chapter in the back of your mind. After Spider-Man 3’s credits wrap, you can honestly say, you don’t mind if they make another one or not.

Joe Rogan comes out swinging on Shiny Happy Jihad, his first stand-up CD in seven years, with a lot of different material that ranges from Osama bin Laden coming straight from a Stan Lee comic book to why would you put a sexually repressed priest into a little, dark room and listen to sinners sex stories, there’s something here for everyone to enjoy and/or become grossly offended.

The CD starts off rather slow, and its delayed release leaves some of the obvious Fear Factor jokes gasping for air since the show was canceled last year and the CD was only released in March 2007, leaving the source material out of sight, out of mind for most people. And judging by the final season’s ratings, many who purchased the CD even last year, should it have been released, would have been asking, “That show’s still on?”;

Rogan takes ample time to warm up and get into the meat of his material, that dealing with the Middle East and how the war (ripe material for anyone in the industry) has affected us at home and the observations of how things are so different half way around the world. He does raise some very funny points about how we are still not able to capture the super-villain like bin Laden and how he would win the war (of which is very amusing).

While the CD induced very little belly laughs, it did score a fair amount of chuckles throughout its brisk runtime. The routine actually ends four tracks early, leaving the final four featuring Rogan taking unscripted questions from the audience. This is where the comedian really shines by being able to keep up with his fans and also stay consistently funny by cracking jokes and impressions on the fly.

Joe Rogan has caused some controversy of late in accusing other comedians like Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook of stealing material, but that doesn’t come to light anywhere on the disc (due to its 2006 recording date), and the disc is certainly not for the easy offended, but there’s a quality comedy act here, and while it won’t knock you back, its an enjoyable experience.

For the History Channel’s next special, after The Dark Ages earlier this year, Sherman’s March returns to one of the biggest and still most polarized wars to take place in the United States, the Civil War. At the heart of the war was the ideals between a sectarian branch of the country who believed one way, and the rest of the union failing to acknowledge the ability to withdrawn from the union.

One of the biggest men during this was not the immediately identifiable Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee but that of William Sherman, a man still held in contempt in the South to this day, nearly 130 years after the final shots range out in the bloody war. He’s viewed as a hero in the north, the man who allowed Grant to successfully pin Lee and lead to his surrender, but it wasn’t necessarily his prowess on the field of battle that gave him his advantage, is the way he conducted his entire campaign across Georgia, to Savannah, and north through the Carolinas to deliver one of the final blows to the rebellion.

The special, debuting tonight on The History Channel, takes a historical view of the campaign and analyzes the tactics of foraging for supplies, and engaging in total war across Georgia, and the destruction of South Carolina as he marched. Sherman‘s march across the south has taken a life of its own over the years with many stories of destruction being attributed to the man, even though he was hundreds of miles away on the days the supposed melee occurred. It’s interesting to see just how different historians see the unconventional, but ultimately effective, methods that Sherman engaged in and the cold blooded nature in which his campaign was met by members of the rebellion.

The show’s somewhat cheesy tagline says it all; The Civil War was anything but Civil. Sherman‘s March shows you why that statement is entirely true.

The recreation begins with a warning about some dramatization in the historically accurate presentation, and most of these events can be pointed out easily. The screener copy provided lacked some of the booming sound effects you would expect during some of the bigger battle recreations and the gunshots throughout are not very well done. The acting, or over-acting for that matter, of those involved in the recreation does lead to a few laughs here and there, but ultimately it’s the information you’re here to see, and like The History Channel is known for, there’s a great deal here and its presented in the standard commentary format that has worked so well for so long.

Like most of these specials, the core audience is aficionados of the individual conflict, but since most viewers are familiar with Sherman‘s march from high school history classes, and the supposed “Scorched Earth policy” there’s a nice refresher her for anyone with two hours to spare and an interest in what really happen on the march to the see.

Christopher Titus is one of the most intense comics alive. Just hearing him perform stand up gets you pumped and ready to give the whole world the middle finger, and The Fifth Anniversary End of The World Tour is no exception. Titus again delivers on the angry, intelligent humor that makes him one of the best comedians to listen to.

In Tour, Titus covers subject matter ranging from kids and birth to the September 11^th attacks to a British Batman to dealing with his father’s death. But an important underlying theme is this “End of the World”; notion. He talks a lot about bringing his daughter into the world a month before one of the most devastating things to happen to America and how it will affect her growing up. Granted he does this in a way that will have you on the floor laughing, but that’s how his comedy works. Titus has never been a person who pulls any punches. He will talk about anything and everything, and somehow turn the most serious and depressing situations into the most hilarious thing you’ve ever heard.

The two disc set is definitely worth the listen, and more than once. He talks about so many different subjects that every time you go back through the tracks you pick up on something you missed the first time. It’s no wonder that his tour has sold out all over the country, and it’s another testament to FOX’s missteps in cancelling good quality shows.