Front Page > World > Article Title/Fixture Title

Front Page > Entertainment

Email | Print | Subscribe

Click-2-Listen

advertisement

Media Room

Kelly Jane Torrance
November 30, 2007

A crane-cam was used to film this walrus for "Arctic Tale."

---

Gift-giving can be a tricky business when you're not sure of your recipient's taste. Live Earth — The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis (Warner Bros., $27.98) may be one of the season's few sure things. The CD and two-DVD set contains such a wide variety of music that just about anybody should find at least a few tracks they like.

On July 7, 150 musical acts performed in eight cities — New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Hamburg — to raise awareness about climate change. The "Live Earth" CD features 15 of those performances, while the DVD has a generous 57, from performers such as James Blunt, Bon Jovi and the Black Eyed Peas.

If you missed the summer's big reunion tours — Genesis and the Police — you can catch a taste of them on the DVDs here. Genesis is in particularly fine form; clearly the boys didn't live quite so hard in their heyday as some of their contemporaries. One might wish for a better track, though: They wrote many, many songs better than "Invisible Touch."

Duran Duran surprises with a contemporary-sounding "Planet Earth." Other acts also chose apropos titles. Country heartthrob Keith Urban and R&B queen Alicia Keys did a more than a decent take on the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter."

Other images were a little stranger, such as the huge white smiles of the children beyond Roger Waters when he sang about "fat and psychopathic wives" in "Another Brick in the Wall Part II."

The first single from the package is Linkin Park's "Bleed It Out," and the nighttime performance of the inspired rock-rap song is full of energy.

Besides the performances, the DVDs include six short films from the Live Earth Film Series and a documentary on the making of Live Earth, from Al Gore's PowerPoint presentations 20 years ago to the concert earlier this year. It's a nice package, with one exception — you can't even click on "next" to see the next menu of musical performances without being assaulted with a message on what you can do to help. You'll get tired of these quickly when you're scrolling through the menus.

Another sure thing this holiday season is out next week as well — the fourth-highest grossing film of the year domestically, and No. 1 worldwide. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Disney, $34.99) arrives in a two-disc limited edition, in addition to a single disc without all the extras.

Click-2-Listen

Front Page > Entertainment