By AskMen.com Staff
Entertainment Correspondents - Every Monday



Weekly Top Fives

TOP MOVIES
As of September 3rd, 2006
Rank Movie Box Office
1
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby $23,000,000
2
Step Up $21,100,000
3
World Trade Center $19,000,000
4
Barnyard: The Original Party Animals $10,100,000
5
Pulse $8,460,000

TOP TV SHOWS
As of September 3rd, 2006
Rank TV Show Network
1
CSI - Miami CBS
2
Without A Trace CBS
3
CSI CBS
4
NFL Preseason NBC
5
Two And A Half Men CBS

TOP SONGS
As of September 3rd, 2006
Rank Song Artist
1
London Bridge Fergie
2
Crazy Gnarls Barkley
3
Promiscuous Nelly Furtado Featuring Timbaland
4
Me & U Cassie
5
Buttons The Pussycat Dolls Featuring Snoop Dogg

TV Picks

Late Show with David Letterman
David Letterman, Credit: CBS
Monday
- Samuel L. Jackson
- Gnarls Barkley

Tuesday
- Hilary Duff
- Dirty Pretty Things

Wednesday
- Jessica Biel
- Christina Aguilera

Thursday
- Fatboy Slim
- TBA

Friday
- Edward Norton
- Greg Fitzsimmons


The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
Jay Leno, Credit: NBC
Monday
- Will Ferrell
- Everclear

Tuesday
- John C. Reilly
- Pharrell

Wednesday
- Owen Wilson
- Chris Isaak

Thursday
- Kate Hudson
- Soul Asylum

Friday
- Wanda Sykes
- The Fray


New Albums

Beyonce - Credit: Sony Music
B'day
by Beyonce
September 5th, 2006

Comparing Beyonce to other pop stars such as Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson is like contrasting silk with styrofoam: Whereas the first object is appealing to all your senses, the latter is a type of chemical compound that makes some of the most unappealing sounds you've ever heard.

Back with the follow-up to her mega-selling Crazy in Love, B'day shows Beyonce continuing to do what she does best: Taking elements from the worlds of rap, R&B and soul, and using them to push pop music to where she wants it to go. And just like her previous album, B'day costars Beyonce's hip-hop counterpart/boyfriend Jay-Z on tracks like hit-single "Déjà vu" and "Upgrade U." Ultimately, this is a record that will be competing with Furtado's Loose for pop album of the year.



Revelations
by Audioslave
September 5th, 2006

Honestly, the first Audioslave record sucked. Essentially, it sounded like a teenager that had gotten a hold of some D-grade Rage riffs and threw some unused Chris Cornell vocal tracks over them (read: It didn't sound like a band). Given this massive disappointment, Out of Exile (Audioslave's last record) shocked everyone by proving that the group's members were capable of leaving their old bands behind and becoming a cohesive and unique unit. Back now with their third record since forming just a few short years ago, Revelations sees the band members distancing themselves even more from their previous work (if the '60s-inspired first single "Original Fire" is anything to go by). On the whole, a record by men mature enough to rock out properly.



New DVDs

Lost - The Complete Second Season Credit: Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Lost - The Complete Second Season
September 5th, 2006

Matthew Fox, Emilie de Ravin, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. When it comes to soap operas, the female gender seems perfectly content watching socialites sleep around and, if necessary, come back from the dead. Men also enjoy observing women sleep around in real life, but can't stand wasting precious hours watching it on TV. And herein lies the genius of Lost: Not only does the show change the setting of a soap opera from California to a mysterious island in the South Pacific, but it manages to juggle a mind-boggling amount of interesting story lines that have nothing to do with illegitimate children (well, one of them does).

Though some hardcore fans have accused the show's producers of hitting a sophomore slump, the second season of Lost was still far and away one of the best series to have graced television sets in 2005. Now available on DVD, the latest box set of Lost has a plethora of bonuses for fans. Most notable among these extras are a series of unaired flashbacks, an interactive program setting the plot points up for season three, a featurette of conspiracy theories surrounding the show, and "Fire and Water," a look at what it takes to put an episode of Lost together.



United 93
September 5th, 2006

Christian Clemenson, Trish Gates, Polly Adams. It could be argued that the best way to honor heroes isn't to glorify their characters or transform their accomplishments into legend, but instead to present them and their actions as realistically as possible. This was the approach taken by director Paul Greengrass in his cinematic recreation of the fatal trip of flight United 93. Now available for home viewing, this DVD release of the first film to have taken on 9/11 is equipped with a series of extras based around the events that inspired the film, including commentary by the director, a featurette on the families of the passengers and memorial pages for the heroes on the plane.



New Books

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars - Credit: EnemyTerritory.com
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
by id Software
September 5th, 2006

Throughout the gaming world there is one way to make an intergalactic war personal: Get Earth involved. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is the latest title to ramp up gameplay by making our home planet the battleground. Specifically, Territory has players battle for custody of the planet as either the Earth Defense Force (EDF) or the invading alien Strogg armies. To get their war on, gamers have at their disposal more than 40 vehicles, offensive structures and defense systems, such as alien walkers, helicopters and anti-gravity ships. But while the weapons themselves seem to connote the game is centered around brute force, gamers must employ large-scale strategies in order to ensure victory.



New Books

Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose: An Illustrated History - Credit: ECW Press
Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose: An Illustrated History
by Martin Popoff
In bookstores now

If you're a fan of Black Sabbath, you probably have a strong personal connection to much of the band's work as well as your own conscious and unconscious ideas about the meaning and inspiration behind their records. If you want to retain these subjective impressions of Sabbath's work, stay at least 100 yards away from Doom Let Loose, an exhaustive chronicle of the band's 37-year history by respected metal authority Martin Popoff. From the band's start as a pseudo-Zeppelin rip-off to the troubled days before Ozzy returned in the mid-1990s, Loose doesn't miss a note, ego trip or overdose from the history of one rock's milestone groups. On the whole, a worthy addition to Popoff's already exhaustive coverage of the musical black sheep known as heavy metal.

Categories: REVIEWS [t]

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