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The 1995 Monster tour was probably R.E.M.’s most anticipated; it was their first in five years, and the first after their multiplatinum smashes Out of Time and Automatic for the People. It was also by far their most tumultuous. Not only did Bill Berry have to undergo brain surgery due to two aneurysms, Mike Mills went under the knife to fix complications from his previous appendectomy and Michael Stipe had a hernia repaired. The official record of that tour is Road Movie, a film that made a few appearances in arthouse theaters before hitting video and eventually DVD. While there are several strong individual performances, the whole never quite clicks. (more…)

R.E.M.’s 2003 world tour was somewhat unusual in that the band had no new album to support; indeed, most of the tour took place before the Warner Bros. best-of In Time hit stores. With only a few new songs in their arsenal, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe mined their entire 23-year history and performed around 80 songs over the course of the tour. The band’s performance in Wiesbaden, Germany is the basis of R.E.M.’s third concert film, Perfect Square. (more…)

Originally intended to be the first story of Doctor Who’s final season on the air in the 1980s, The Curse Of Fenric was moved back and became the penultimate story of the show’s best season in many years. Of course, many a year has passed since 1989. I haven’t exactly watched Fenric once a year in the meantime, so this DVD gave me a chance to reflect with the benefit of hindsight and, perhaps, slightly more mature tastes. (Well, then again, I do keep snatching up Doctor Who DVDs, so it doesn’t seem like that much has changed.) And the answer is: yes, Fenric is still some sterling Who. (more…)

The DVD rollout of Star Trek: Voyager continues, with the second season arriving in the more familiar (and more expensive) 7-disc format for a season of a Trek series.

The second season was a heady time for the new Trek series - there’s actually a lot of decent stuff in here, and a few bottom-feeders as well. For starters, an unusually strong quartet of first season episodes was held back by UPN, and were subsequently shoehorned into the second season. Whereas previous Trek shows in syndication had the luxury of airing a strong string of episodes in May sweeps leading up to a season finale in early June (it’s almost hard to envision now that The Best Of Both Worlds airing in June 1990, and not in a ratings sweep month), UPN was having trouble popping a number with anything but Voyager in 1995 - virtually the entire slate of programming that it started with was replaced by the network’s sophomore season kickoff in August of that year. (more…)