Push your home theater to infinity and beyond with these out-of-this-world sci-fi flicks on Blu-ray

In the annals of motion picture history, perhaps no genre has stoked the imagination and stimulated the senses quite so well as science fiction. There's something about gleaming metal entities and blinding bursts of projectile plasma that gets the juices flowing—and sets subwoofers in motion—in a way that mere earthly action never will.

If you’re shopping for a new display, don’t leave home without these indispensable Blu-ray discs. 

Over the past six years worth of “Show-Offs” columns, I’ve devoted who knows how many thousands of words to one singular goal: giving you the tools you need to blow your hair back, tickle your retinas, and prove to your guests that you have the best home theater on the block.

That assumes, of course, that you actually do have the best home theater on the block.

Be the Ball

If you've never played a Wii, it's completely different experience than you'd expect with a video game.

Take a game like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 here. You use the wireless remote to swing like an actual golf club. Our friends at Gamervision.com have taken a look at the latest outing in the series.

Sex and Drugs Sold Separately

The missus and I have never been what one would call large-scale entertainers. Parties at our house are few and far between; our modest media room seating has rarely been strained—until last year, that is, when we found ourselves the host of biweekly Rock Band parties.

Since then, every other Saturday night our home is packed with rockers-in-waiting, champing at the bit for their turn at a microphone or faux instrument.

Suffice it to say, Rock Band 2 has been hotly awaited.

Avoid the crowds and get your money’s worth with these spectacular concerts on Blu-ray.  

I’ve just about done with concerts.Not that I don’t love live music—nothing compares to being in the same room with talented musicians doing their thing—but it's just not worth the hassle anymore.

Where is the joy in paying $250 for a nosebleed seat, only to have to strain to hear the music over all of the Chatty Cathys, while some old drunk dude in a two-sizes-too-small Motorhead T-shirt spills Bud in your lap? With the advent of Blu-ray, I honestly cannot find a reasonable answer to that question.

Ahhh August. The summer's end looms, and tempering that disappointment, the start of another football season is eminent.

Capitalizing on the jittery excitement is Madden 09, the latest in the most storied (and most ancient) of football video game franchises.

MusicGiants and iTrax give Internet music downloads an audiophile makeover

Say what you will about the ethical and legal issues surrounding peer-to-peer music trading, but back in the good old days of Napster, Gnutella and other such illicit music download services, sound quality mattered.

Looking for some sweet surround sound music to show off your system? Stop looking for discs and start looking at internet downloads.

If you’re still looking for great high-resolution, multichannel music Show-Offs on disc, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’re looking in the wrong place. These days, digital distribution via the internet has risen from the ashes of DVD-Audio and SACD as the format of choice for discerning audiophiles in need of a 5.1 fix.