Amazon.com This pair of half-hour films focusing on "wakeboarding," an extreme sport in which someone being towed behind a boat essentially surfs across the waves tossed up in the wake, are, in essence, extended music videos. If you're in the mood to stare at daredevils careening across the wakes of speeding boats while raucous music blares, then you'll be delighted. The two main programs on the DVD feature professional wakeboarders doing impressive stunts, which often involve mid-air flips. And while the individual moves are entertaining, the films are mostly content to simply show the action. There's no attempt in Monkey on a String to provide material that might answer some obvious questions, such as what possesses someone to pursue a bizarre endeavor like performing dangerous stunts on the end of a rope being towed by a speeding boat. The second feature on the disc, My House, takes a more human approach to the wakeboarders, showing them out of the water and engaged in mundane tasks like taking a child to school or eating breakfast with their family, but again, the soundtrack consists entirely of music, so you only get visual hints about the personalities involved in the sport. But in fairness, these films were designed for those in the mood to stare at wild stunts onscreen, and they provide a suitably extreme show for that purpose. --Robert J. McNamara