Listen to the Free Windows Media stream!
Members Menu
Listen Menu
Community Menu
Chopin Mall Menu
Advertise Menu
Help Menu


DVD Amigo Host Picks
Support Beethoven Radio by making your purchases through Amazon.com
Nicole's Pick to Click: Battlestar Galactica - Season Three

Price: $59.98
Released: March 18, 2008

The third season of Battlestar Galactica got off to a rip-roaring start on New Caprica, where the settlers had found themselves under Cylon occupation at the end of the previous season. Dr. Baltar (James Callis) had been elected President based on his intention to stop looking for Earth and settle on New Caprica, but is now a puppet of the Cylons, forced to sign execution orders for numerous humans, including former President Roslin (Mary McDonnell). A resistance movement is building, however, led by Col. Tigh (Michael Hogan), and assisted by Chief Tyrol (Aaron Douglas) and Samuel Anders (Michael Trucco). Tigh's desperate tactics--including suicide bombers--raise interesting parallels to the U.S. war in Iraq, and he finds he has to make an even tougher choice. Thanks to Admiral Adama's (Edwards James Olmos) return and the unexpected help of Boomer (Grace Park), the colonists escape, then begin a series of trials in order to convict all of the Cylon collaborators, culminating in the explosive trial of Baltar himself. In a boxing-metaphor episode, Apollo (Jamie Bamber) and Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) resume their mutual attraction with a surprising outcome. After the exciting beginning, Battlestar Galactica sagged a little in the middle of the third season (as it did in the second season) with its ship-bound episodes, but caught speed again at the end. The quest to find Earth, the unexpected loss of a major character, and the revealing of four of the final five Cylons kept viewers coming back to a series that blends action, drama, and universal questions of loyalty, faith, and justice in a way that transcends the science-fiction setting. With Dean Stockwell, Lucy Lawless, and Tricia Helfer as Cylons 1, 3, and 6, Mark Sheppard as defense attorney Romo Lampkin, Alessandro Juliani as Lt. Gaeta, Kandyse McClure as Petty Officer "Dee" Dualla, Nicki Clyne as Crewman Specialist Cally, Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh, and Rekha Sharma as presidential aide Tory Foster.

Every episode on the DVD set has executive producer Ronald Moore's podcast commentaries (occasionally joined by others) and almost every episode has deleted scenes, including a different (and less effective) version of the season's final surprise. Also included are bonus commentaries, the Resistance webisodes (10 episodes, 26 minutes total) that provide more of life on occupied New Caprica, executive producer David Eicks' "video blog" featurettes, and an extended version of "Unfinished Business" (mostly adding non-Starbuck-Apollo material). --David Horiuchi

 
Scott's Pick to Click: No Country for Old Men

Price: $29.99
Released: March 11, 2008

The Coen brothers make their finest thriller since Fargo with a restrained adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel. Not that there aren't moments of intense violence, but No Country for Old Men is their quietest, most existential film yet. In this modern-day Western, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a Vietnam vet who could use a break. One morning while hunting antelope, he spies several trucks surrounded by dead bodies (both human and canine). In examining the site, he finds a case filled with $2 million. Moss takes it with him, tells his wife (Kelly Macdonald) he's going away for awhile, and hits the road until he can determine his next move. On the way from El Paso to Mexico, he discovers he's being followed by ex-special ops agent Chigurh (an eerily calm Javier Bardem). Chigurh's weapon of choice is a cattle gun, and he uses it on everyone who gets in his way--or loses a coin toss (as far as he's concerned, bad luck is grounds for death). Just as Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a World War II vet, is on Moss's trail, Chigurh's former colleague, Wells (Woody Harrelson), is on his. For most of the movie, Moss remains one step ahead of his nemesis. Both men are clever and resourceful--except Moss has a conscious, Chigurh does not (he is, as McCarthy puts it, "a prophet of destruction"). At times, the film plays like an old horror movie, with Chigurh as its lumbering Frankenstein monster. Like the taciturn terminator, No Country for Old Men doesn't move quickly, but the tension never dissipates. This minimalist masterwork represents Joel and Ethan Coen and their entire cast, particularly Brolin and Jones, at the peak of their powers. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
 
Additional Recommendations
The Last King of Scotland (Widescreen Edition)

List Price: $19.98
The Last King of Scotland
There Will Be Blood (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)

List Price: $34.99
There Will Be Blood
Love in the Time of Cholera

List Price: $27.98
Love in the Time of Cholera
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)

List Price: $34.99
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The Tudors - The Complete First Season

List Price: $42.99
The Tudors - The Complete First Season
The Simpsons Movie (Widescreen Edition)

List Price: $29.99
The Simpsons Movie
The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc Special Edition)

List Price: $26.98
The Wizard of Oz (Two-Disc Special Edition)
The Chorus (Les Choristes)

List Price: $29.99
The Chorus
Blue Planet (IMAX) [HD DVD]

List Price: $28.99
Blue Planet
Verdi - Requiem

List Price: $24.99
Verdi - Requiem
Puccini - Madama Butterfly / Fiorenza Cedolins, Marcello Giordani, Juan Pons, Francesca Franci, Carlo Bosi, Daniel Oren, Verona Opera

List Price: $29.99
Puccini - Madama Butterfly
Pan's Labyrinth

List Price: $19.98
Pan's Labyrinth
 
 
Copyright 2008 Beethoven Radio  Design: Euphoria Audio