Mason1024

There has never been and can never be a musical genius with even a fraction of the main character's talent. Mozart would be an absolute imbecile compared to this little kid August Rush, and for those familiar with music, this aspect (the foundation, really) just kills the movie.

It is impossible to play like Michael Hedges in your first few minutes with a guitar. Ditto with a piano, and any other instrument. If it were a martial arts movie, the kid would beat his master to death two minutes into his very first lesson. Too impossible, even for a fairy tale.

But, if you don't know a saxophone from a sitar, or perhaps if you are _infinitely_ forgiving, maybe you can enjoy it.

In sharp contrast to most reviews here, the "Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now" disc that I rented was marginally funny at best. While Ellen's general style is right in the vein of good comedy, her observations in this performance just lack an edge... maybe an absurdity or exaggeration that makes all the difference between you or me talking about, say, airport security shenanigans and a professional comedian addressing the same subject. This was no funnier than discussing the same topics with regular people--a few good laughs, but that's about it. Oftentimes she'd make an observation and I would wait expectantly for the joke that puts it in hilarious perspective, only to find her moving along to the next lukewarm observation. Hopefully her other material is of better caliber.

As a health warning, if you thought this DVD was truly hilarious, you may want to stay away from comics like Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Mitch Hedburg or countless others who might be funny enough to actually kill you.

Lynch. The man has some really great stuff! He knows how to disturb us, then reward us by getting us think in different ways. This, however, is altogether different. Dumbland's reward is 1% absurd comedy, earned by enduring 99% stupidity. I may have laughed once, but somewhere around episode 4 I just started watching on fast-forward. Didn't miss a thing. I felt relieved when it ended, and that's part of the point with this series. It's an annoying series about annoying characters in annoying situations, rounded out with annoying animation, voices and sound. But recognizing this and its other absurdist qualities still fails to make Dumbland worthwhile.