The History Channel once again upholds its tradition of creating rewarding, interesting specials that both entertain and enlighten with Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower which explores the separatists movement away from the Church of England and subsequent settling of Plymouth Colony in North America.

Through the common use of narration, voice over from first party sources and interviews with historians Desperate Crossing begins with the movement away from the recently founded Church of England which saw the King denounce the Pope and place himself as the figurehead and leader of the church. Of course this wouldn’t sit well with everyone and a separatist movement was founded which ultimately lead to a group of different-thinking individuals boarding the Mayflower and setting sail for “the New World” where religious persecution couldn’t find them.

Anyone who progressed through elementary school is familiar with the story of the Pilgrims, their trek across the Atlantic Ocean and peace accord with the native peoples which ultimately led to the first Thanksgiving (or harvest festival as it was known back then). What they don’t necessarily teach you is the deep circumstances which lead the Pilgrims to leave England and the Netherlands to settle the virgin New England coast. What Desperate Crossing does in its three hour runtime is bring in several high profile, and historically accurate, characters for the viewer to follow through the trials and tribulations of the new colony.

What is equally impressive is the program’s runtime of 180 minutes never really feels that long as the pace in which the specials is produced serves up very little downtime and moves along briskly focusing on events and years of significance that helped to shape one of the fledgling colonies of what would become the United States.

The acting is generally good throughout sans some dramatic overacting by the actor portraying King James I, but as a period piece all of the pieces fit together into a believable setting that almost makes you forget you are watching a reenactment.

Two interesting points worth mentioning here are the insight from descendants of the Native Americans who meet and were entertained by the Englishmen at the first Thanksgiving and the fact that that event plays a very small roll in the special’s story. The focus of the program is on setting up the voyage, the reasons that lead up to such a voyage being attempted, and the first, deathly, year here in America which is quite refreshing for those who have seen and heard the story of Thanksgiving dozens of times.

Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower premieres Sunday, November 19 at 8PM/7C on The History Channel. 

Starz Comedy’s new series, Stand Up or Shut Up! takes a backstage look at what it takes to be a standup comedian and how different topics are address by comics. The screener provided delved right into one of the most poignant and hot topics in the comedy world today, politics. The comics interviewed for the micro series, and host Michael Somerville, give their opinions on how political humor is address in the industry and how they use such topics in their own act.

The series breaks things up by showing the comics talking to the camera either walking through a park or walking down the street and also in workshop classes at the American Comedy Institute in New York City complete with small standup sessions with their classmates.

One of the great things about the series is it isn’t afraid to show the would-be-stand-ups fail in some of their jokes, in fact, a great majority of them aren’t particularly funny to start off by even over the course of a 10 minute episode you can see them become more comfortable with some of the material the show addresses.

Standing out amount the comics featured on the show is Aussie-native Josh Zepps who had me laughing hysterically when he compares gay marriage to shellfish and how the Bible doesn’t seem to distinguish any difference between laying with another man and eating crab cakes.

The series has been running since July 21 for a 10 week run culminating in the graduation of the comics from ACI. There’s a lot to like about the series, including its condensed, no-nonsense time frame that gets you in for a few good laughs and leaves you wanting just a little bit more.

Stand Up or Shut Up! runs on Starz Comedy every Friday at 7:50PM. Check your local listings for actual time and channel.

For more information on the series, check out the official website.

The unusually named Broken Trail has nothing to with gay cowboys on the old frontier but everything to do with persevering in the Old West when lawlessness was everywhere and men thought only about themselves and worldly pleasures. The AMC mini series stars Academy Award Winner Robert Duvall and Academy Award Nominee Thomas Haden Church as uncle and nephew, respectively, bringing a herd of wild horses across the frontier to make money and set out on an adventure. But while the story starts with just the two of them, I certainly doesn’t end there as series of unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you look at it) events bring to men together with five Chinese girls sold into slavery among other accomplices in need of assistance.

Writer Alan Geoffrion’s story is fleshed out and interesting enough to keep you interested but after the first hour you may wonder why the mini was expanded to three hours (four with commercials). In fact, the story doesn’t really start going until well through the first night of the two night event when the main antagonist makes herself evident. There is a lot of character development, and while it’s much appreciated by everyone in the audience, some portions of the film, once again, feel as though they are slightly padding. As the movie goes on the heart and honesty that these seemingly rugged cowboys possess becomes ever the more apparent.

The brutality of the Old West isn’t shied away from either as gun battles, hangings, and attempted rapes are a staple of the conflict the main characters must face every day during their adventure. One particularly surprising moment is a bloody shoot-first-explain-later battle in which Duvall’s character Print Ritter opens fire for seemingly no reason on another man. Its only after his corpse lays before the men do we learn why these events took place.

Walter Hill’s direction and cinematography takes advantage of the untamed wilderness with some amazing shots showcasing beautiful sunsets and vistas, just as they would have appeared before the skyscraper seemed to block out all the mountains from view.

Duvall, who also produced the film, still has a lot in him playing his signature old, wise character he’s played in many movies before, but the character suits him well and he fills the role wonderfully. The soon-to-be-Sandman Church plays the role of the slightly troubled, but adventuring Tom Harte equally as well. The supporting cast, including the five Chinese girls who come to join the troop, are played very well as their actions and facial expressions must speak for them due to their lack of English skills. Even without the subtitles on portions of the film you’d still be able to figure out what was going on due to the quality of the acting.

The immense amount of talent associated with this production has the high production values oozing out, and it defiantly shows in almost every facet. Writing, direction, and acting, the movie definitely sets a bar for made-for productions.

Billing itself as AMC’s First Original Movie, Broken Trail is a worthy addition to the channel’s original content and a great overall film that brings you believably back to the Old West which shows it in the most dramatic light possible with an unflinching no-holds-barred look into a way of life that once dominated a great portion of our country.

I’m a huge James Bond fan, and I only know one other person who can give me a run for my money when it comes to geeking out and turning into a total fanboy when it comes to 007. I also consider Pierce Brosnan to be perfectly suited for the role of James Bond, he embodied the role during his tour of duty by providing the action we needed, the quips we craved, and wooing the women we wished we could have. While the series itself succumbed to self-parody and more and more outlandish plots and gadgets, the character was still intact for the most part.

When Casino Royale was first announced (sans Brosnan) you can expect my reservations. The series was rebooting, a new James Bond was being brought in, and the entire series itself was being refreshed to something many in the younger generation were unfamiliar with. There’s no Q, there’s no Moneypenny, but there is the same M? Imagine the confusion of younger fans coming off of the CGI-laced Die Another Day into the more grounded, nearly-gadget-less Royale.

All those fears are unfounded, however, as Casino Royale proves to be one of the, if not the, best James Bond film yet with a perfectly cast lead, a great supporting line-up, interesting story, twists, turns, cars, women, guns, and explosions, James Bond returns to the big screen with a huge bang focusing in on the character and his beginnings rather than invisible cars and laser watches.

A lot needs to be said for Daniel Craig who steps into the role as the sixth actor to play the title character. Craig brings everything to the role and gives the audience more than we could expect. His cocky, arrogant beginnings are believably portrayed and his hardened, deep eyes give the impression of a cold-blooded killer but also the emotion we know Bond still relies on early in his career. Enough speculation and critical analysis of the actor seems totally unwarranted and those who adamantly spoke out against him in the beginning are dining on a feast of crow right now as Craig IS James Bond. I won’t go so far as to say he is better than Sean Connery in the role, as I’ll need several more viewings of Casino Royale and it subsequent sequels to see the range of the character, but based solely on Royale, Craig easily passes Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Brosnan, and George Lazenby.

The movie itself, as previously mentioned, focuses in on the beginnings of 007 and his career at MI6. From the beginning of the film you can see the emotionally driven, arrogant son of a bitch who opposes authority and seems to work for himself. As the movie ends, and Craig delivers the catch phrase we’ve all been longing to hear for 2 hours and 24 minutes you can see a change in the character as all that he has known has fallen apart around him, his emotional attachments severed, and his sense of duty heightened. The movie grounds itself more in reality (for the most part) with out any of the outlandish (and totally unbelievable) gadgets that cropped up in the ladder installments of the series. The gadgets that you do find here are entirely possibly in the real world, as is the rest of the film.

Everything about the film was in question two years ago and now, 24 months later, the only question we have is how long until we get to see 007 on the big screen again. Casino Royale is good, scary good, so good in fact that after the credits began to roll with the familiar theme in the background all I could think about was if there was another showtime tonight and how do I get tickets.

With so many excellent parts to the film it’s nearly impossible to touch on them all, but Casino Royale is a film that needs to be experienced by both fans and non-fans of the franchise. Thinking of it as an introduction to the spy movie genre or an extension of a 40 year franchise, either way Casino Royale ranks as one of the best times you will have at the movies and easily the best film of 2006.

See it once, then see it again. His name is Bond, James Bond, and he’s back and better than ever.

Most sequels or sequels of sequels tend to lose some of the spice that made the original movie worthy of having a sequel in the first place. There are franchises which buck this trend and those that follow a rollercoaster ride of mediocrity and glory as the series progresses through the years. The Saw series is a good example of the ladder with both the original and first sequel building up and progressively getting better with more inventive deaths, clever schemes, and twist endings that really made you think in the end. Saw III, the latest in the annual Halloween series, manages to hold the bar firmly in place for the series, but doesn’t raise it any particular way for the franchise or the genre.

Saw III picks up almost immediately after the events of Saw II, and as an added bit of closure we’re treated to how the second (and first) movies really ended by the screenwriters desire to tie up some loose ends. Granted they do leave a few questions, but we ultimately figure out what happened to Adam (the photographer from the first film) and Detective Matthews (who was last seen chained in a very familiar looking bathroom). Luckily for us the events that took place in the previous film are not only touched upon, they are a big component of the overall movie’s plot. Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) is still very much near death and Amanda (Shawnee Smith) is still working as his protégé in continuing on his work.

Unlike the first two movies the main “conflict” with a character or characters being put in an impossible situation (two men trapped in a bathroom, a group of people in a locked down house infected with a virus) plays second fiddle to Jigsaw himself and his final elaborate games to test the will of a person. I’ll be honest and say that I was surprised by the movie’s final revelation about who each of these people was and who was being tested for what. While the twist is no where near as good as the original, or as out-of-the-blue as the second film, it sits well with the viewer as you pick up bits and pieces along the way. We almost called part of the ending about half way through the film, but the ultimate climax and finale were a surprise.

The beauty of this series is it knows what it is, it knows the genre, and it knows who its fans are and it doesn’t bend over backwards to appease those who are not part of its core audience. The filmmakers at Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate know that male teenagers and early twentysomethings will turn out in droves for a film like this around Halloween and are prepared for the most obscene and grotesque display they can get a ticket for. These movies are cheap to produce, very cleverly marketed, and appease a devoted fan base.

Saw III lacks the horror aspect of most of the films in the genre in which the purpose is not to scare you, you won’t find any jump-out-of-your-seat moments here, but what you will find are plenty of reasons to cringe at the screen as decaying pigs become liquid, bone meets skull, and explosives meeting the human body. Saw III handles all three of the previous statements wonderfully and delivers a rewarding experience.

The second sequel, however, may not be as accessible as the first, or even second, films in the series for new viewers to be introduced. With so many flashbacks to the previous two movies, and the events leading up to them, and after them, this is definitely a more fan oriented film geared towards bringing closure and setting up the next sequel. How the will pull off nearly-greenlit Saw IV is anyone’s guess after the finale of this installment, but I can honestly saw I’ll be in line, ticket in hand, next year at this very same time.

The History Channel builds upon its mini series Rome: Engineering an Empire by expanding it into a weekly series focusing on some of the worlds most fascinating and complex empires including The Aztecs, Greeks, Alexander the Great, China, and the two hour pilot episode Egypt.

The premiere episode kicks off introducing us to the ancient Egyptian empire and how the engineering feats accomplished nearly 5000 years ago were dramatically ahead of their time and shaped future empires such as Rome and Greece with the invention of stone structures, pillars, obelisks, and the use of quarrying technology to construct these massive structures when the rest of the world was still piling small rocks together or shaping buildings out of mud.

The series is hosted by actor Peter Weller (“24”, Robocop) who is also an art historian as he takes us through some of the surviving structures in Egypt and helps us to understand the massive undertaking it was to fully accomplish what the Egyptians did without the use of computers and machines of any kind.

One of the stand out features of the telecast is the use of remarkably improved CGI over some of the History Channel’s past endeavors which left much to be desired in the computer effects departments. The use of digital models in Engineering and Empire gives the viewer a great perspective how spectacular the engineering feats accomplished really were.

The program, while being focused on the construction of massive ceremonial burial tombs, also touches upon the Egyptian ingenuity in building forts along the banks of the Nile during conquests of neighboring Nubia and the construction of dams to protect the Egyptian people from the seasonal flood waters of the Nile River.

One of the most interesting points explored in the program is the failure of several structures including a dam and the Bent Pyramid which called for the angle of inclination to be dramatically altered after only half the pyramid was constructed due to the failure of the underlying bedrock to support the massive weight of the structure.

Aside from some history lessons on several of the pharaohs explored in the episode, the focus is clearly aimed at the “engineering of the empire” rather than focusing on some of the well known figureheads such as King Tut or Cleopatra.

The series strives to show a clear view of the architectural genius that was present during the time of the pharaohs in Egypt and it accomplishes this task marvelously. One can only hope the rest of the planned weekly episodes is as focuses and informative. For any architecture or history fans, Engineering and Empire is Tivo worthy programming.

The fan service film Lovecracked! The Movie, a play on words featuring the works of H.P. Lovecraft is representative if what can happen when you get a lot of people together to try and meld together short stories and “inspired by” takes on the works of a particular author and turn them into a semi-successful full length film. I say “semi-successful” because there are parts of Lovecracked! which really stand out as something extraordinary and others that, well, not so much.

The film starts out presented its way of linking all these stories together (loosely). We are witness to the filming of a faux TV show focusing on H.P. Lovecraft, his works, who he was, and what he was about. In between segments of the show, which has the roving reporter querying people such as oblivious businessmen and a snowman, we are sometimes treated to interpretations of Lovecraft’s work. Each segment is done by a different director and a different cast which gives the overall film a sense of freshness as things will change nearly a dozen times in Lovecracked!’s 87 minute runtime and if you don’t enjoy a particular segment, a new one is on tap.

Stand out bits include “The Statement of Randolph Carter” which seems like the most direct interpretation of a Lovecraft short story and “Remain” which brings back an old school Tool music video like feel as well as possessing the film’s greatest special effects in the stop motion animation.

Passable segments include the semi-cliché “Witch’s Spring” where a femme fatal seduces a young man only to harvest his heart and soul and “BugBoy” which comes up short in the story department but shines in its excellent special effects.

The rest of the segments, including the soft-core porn “Re-Penetrator” come up decidedly short in more ways than one. “The History of the Lurkers” is a dialog-devoid chasm of dull which doesn’t seem to end as soon as it should. The aforementioned “Re-Penetrator” is gratuitous for the sake of being gratuitous and leaving out all the humor one would expect given its premise and start.

A lot of the films jokes feel forced and recycled from other works (such as the TV show host appearing, sans-pants, in the middle of a segment). There are times when you feel yourself laughing out loud, but after a well done title introduction the jokes are few and far between for what you feel is a horror/comedy in the same vein of Troma’s work (whose co-founder Lloyd Kaufman is featured in the film).

Fans of Lovecraft may be mixed on where they stand after viewing the film. Several of the segments seem to perfectly channel the aura of Lovecraft’s work while others may only bare a passing resemblance to the original written material, or reference it in name only. With a mixed bag of good and bad bits chained together with a semi-funny, semi-original on-going bit Lovecracked! is an average endeavor.

Jackass: Number Two lives up to everything we would expect after the first time and a successful TV show. The sequel is bigger and certainly pushes the limits of what we might consider good taste, but its all for a laugh, so, in the end, it works.

Like the original film, Number Two is book ended by some scripted sequences: a running of the bulls and a musical number with plenty of bodily injury thrown in for good measure. Between those we are treated to some of the most cringe inducing stunts even printed on celluloid. So many of the bits hit that it becomes almost impossible to hear the dialog spoken before and after jokes because the theater is uproariously applauding or laughing too loud. Not that this is a bad thing.

Truth be told, Number Two, much like the first time, is best seen with a large group of friends in a packed theater. Half of the experience is the atmosphere created by hundreds of jackass fans all sharing sympathy pains or laughing hysterically at the jokes. Even the dreaded “Junior High Explosion” that seems to ruin the movie-going experience week after week is kept in check (partly because of the film’s R-rating and because being noisy is part of the game).

Johnny Knoxville and the guys have upped the ante on themselves with the second installment in the series with some very creative pranks and some harking back to the old school roots of the series. Standouts include the Terrorist Cab Ride near the end of the film where one of the crew is dressed up to look Middle Eastern and asks to go to the airport spouting anti-American propaganda. Little does he know that the cabbie is, in fact, director Jay Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar stops the cab in a parking lot and pulls a gun causing laughter abounds from those in on the joke and chilling fear from those not.

Old school send-ups include fun with shopping carts, mini-bikes, and various other objects attached to what appear to be oxygen tanks and let loose off of a ramp into a lake. Every skit in the film seems to click even the most disgusting ones like director/producer Spike Jonze walking around in make up pretending to be an elderly woman whose robe keeps on opening up.

Jackass: Number Two successfully continues the long-concluded MTV franchise on the big screen. The film represents some of the grossest moments you’ll ever see in a film, but it also provides some of the biggest laughs of the year. It certainly won’t win any awards, but its definitely a film to see, providing you liked the series and can stand to see grown men vomiting uncontrollably.