Year:  1959
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  James Arness, Milburn Stone, Amanda Blake, Dennis Weaver, Ken Curtis
Creators:  John Meston, Norman MacDonnell
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     On October 5th, Paramount Home Entertainment releases Season Four Volume One of Gunsmoke.  Like the fourth season, each of the first three seasons was split into two volumes.  Now, Gunsmoke ran for 20 years.  That means that if you’re going to collect the entire series, you will have to grab forty volumes.  Which would probably look really cool, all side-by-side on your DVD shelf, but will likely get rather expensive and take a long time to complete.  At the current rate of release, the final volume of the final season of Gunsmoke will be released sometime in 2026.

     Oh well, I have the time.  Besides, I don’t think I can handle that much Gunsmoke – 635 episodes in all – all at once.  After all, every season (so far) has been pretty much exactly the same.  Black-and-white justice, questionable morals and suspect characters.  Matt Dillon (James Arness) is the invincible sherrif, the fastest gun in the world, the toughest of tough guys, the ultimate arbiter of justice and conflict.  The bad guys are seedy lowlifes who either force the situation until they are shot, or get ridden out of town for their transgressions.  And that’s about it.

     The first episode of the fourth season sees Marshall Dillon getting framed for murder.  Of course, we all know that Matt Dillon would gun down an unarmed man from behind!  He’s too good and pure.  But he’d sure gun down several armed men face-to-face.  We’ve seen that many a time.  In this first episode, the feds have to send someone to bring him in.  He’s wanted for murder, after all.  So they send in “Wild Bill Hickock”, an old-west name meant to conjure up the same reverence and fear as Matt Dillon.

     This leads to a really strange, surreal scene which is actually pretty awesome.  Matt Dillon sees Wild Bill (they appear to be old friends), and says something along the lines of “I shoulda known they wouldn’t have sent some greenhorn to pick ME up”, and they hang out and joke and bond over the fact that they’re both total badasses on the right side of the law.  Then they join forces to take down the bad guys.  It’s awesome.  Like, we’re all just supposed to know Wild Bill Hickock – he’s famous!  I guess they’re right, as it turns out.

     The thing is, I have only seen four seasons now of Gunsmoke.  All four have been exactly the same.  I can only assume that for the next sixteen seasons, the same basic formula applied to the show.  So that’s 20 seasons of the same exact thing, episode after episode.  But – it works!  I really don’t mind sitting down and watching ten episodes of Gunsmoke, in a row.  Yes, it’s mindless after a while.  But it’s far better entertainment than A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila, or any number of today’s television shows.

     Some things just work, and well enough to last 20 years.  Gunsmoke was one of them.  After all, AC/DC has been making the same song for 37 years, and I still love listening to it!

Year:  2009, 2010
Genre:  TV series, Reality
Country:  United States (where else)
Language:  English, bad English, swearing English
Starring:  Josh T. Ryan
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Lock N Load is like a porno movie starring seven elderly people that you know in passing.  Like, they’re in your grandma’s quilting club, and you find out that they have shot a tasteful classy adult film.  Would you watch?  Maybe not.  But I sure would.  Oh, the DVD would probably sit on my table for a few weeks while I worked up the nerve to put it in the player.  It might even get put away with the others, and I might forget about it for a while.  But the time would come where curiosity got the best of me and I peeked in on the really gross private lives of the old people on the periphery of my social circle.

     And so it is with Lock N Load.  I don’t want to watch it.  Or, rather, I don’t want to want to watch it.  Follow?  I want to set this TV series aside, pretend it doesn’t exist, and go on with my life faking ignorance.  Maybe it’s the Canadian in me, but the idea of watching Americans rave about their guns, and buy their fourteenth assault rifle to go along with their existing cache of AK-47s, and talk about “what I’d do if some punk walked into my house” kind of makes my skin crawl.

     But then, like the quilting porn, I do eventually put on the DVD.  And I watch.  And I find that once begun, it’s very difficult to turn off this TV series.  For all those reasons I just mentioned.  While it’s genuinely disturbing to see granny come into a gun store to purchase a magnum to hide in her Depends just in case some “punk” busts into her pad, it’s also fascinating to watch that purchasing process.

     Josh T. Ryan is the proprietor of the shop, the “star” of the series who sells guns to everyone.  He certainly knows his stuff – he can discuss, intelligently, all the proper attachments an old man can add to his AK-47, the Leopold Scopes and so forth, so that he can pimp his assault rifle like Xzibit would pimp someone’s ride.  You want spinning chrome rims on that bad boy?

     A true salesman, Ryan knows that he has to talk to each customer in their own language.  So when the frightened neighbourhood lady comes in, concerned about the growing crime rate in her community, he makes sure she understands that a shotgun is the best weapon to scare off the neighbourhood hoods.  He makes sure that she feels like a gangster when holding that shotgun, maybe even MORE badass than the thugs she plans to shoot with it.

     And when the thugs themselves come in, sideways hats and baggy pants and all, he “relates” to them by talking in swear words, calling them “bro”, inquiring about their tats and saying irritating things like “straight-up gangsta, homey”.  He bonds with customers by going shooting with them – the old ladies, the AK-toting elderly men, the seven-year-old kids with their rifles.  He always seems to lose the shooting competitions though.  Even the one held at the – seriously – “Family Shooting Center”.

     Lock N Load really is compulsively watchable.  It passes no judgement, but rather allows me to make up my own mind about the people who buy guns and use guns.  I have made up my mind.  They’re scary and nuts.  Very often, someone will go on and on about their second amendment rights, and that they have a right to bear arms, and that they take that right very, very seriously.  No one ever explains, however, how the “right” to bear arms translates to the “obligation” to bear arms.

     Here in Canada, I have the “right” to health care.  Universal health care, dont’cha know.  Imagine that I injured myself, once a week, on purpose.  Just to make sure I made full use of the free health care I receive.  Sew my finger back on, I have the right.  That’s basically the argument they’re making here, without really going beyond the basic Second Amendment!  I have the right to my gun!  I take that very seriously!  I’ll shoot anyone who breaks into my house and wants to steal my silverware!

     And so it goes.  Episode after episode of old people and little kids and mild-mannered college students and gangbangers and everyone in between coming in to get their perfectly legal (they say that a lot) firearms.  Excercising their second amendment rights (they say that a lot too) because if those rights aren’t excercised they could become atrophied.  And shooting with the gun guy and striking the proper stance and posing like they’re in a gangster movie.

     It’s creepy, at least to me it is, but addictive.  Like I imagine quilt-porn would be.  Lock N Load (I think it’s just the first season) is a Showtime show coming to DVD October 5th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Year:  2009, 2010
Genre:  TV series, drama, supernatural
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Patricia Arquette, Jake Weber, Miguel Sandoval, Sofia Vassilieva, Maria Lark, Madison Carabello, Miranda Carabello, David Cubitt, Tina DiJoseph, Holliston Coleman, Bruce Gray
Guest stars:  Diedrich Bader
Creator:  Glenn Gordon Caron
Run time:  13 hours, 29 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The fifth season of Medium ended with a cliffhanger – Allison (Patricia Arquette) had a brain tumor, and an operation, and may have lost her psychic gifts forever!  What was going to happen when the sixth season began?  My stars!  But then you think about it for a second.  This is, after all, a TV show.  One whose central premise IS that Allison has psychic gifts.  So, you think she’ll get those powers back?  In the very first episode of Season Six?  Of course she will!

     This is a good thing though – at least that wasn’t dragged out too much.  One of the things I really like about Medium is that Allison’s psychic gifts ARE the show, and not just an excuse to have another cop show on TV.  (Like I recently wrote about The Goodwife, where the cheating-politician-husband story line is just a setup, but after that it’s just another lawyer show.) 

     So Season Six rolls on, with the day-to-day life of the DuBois family moving along as an irritating sidebar to otherwise excellent episodes.  And then…the season finale.  Which HAS to be a cliffhanger, just like every other season, right?  Otherwise, how would anyone, ever, want to come back and watch a seventh season?  Who cares that the show is good, and that people just plain like it, you MUST give them another, more contrived reason!

     And so the final episode of the season sees Allison die.  And then she’s a ghost, and she wanders around and meets other ghosts and talks to her daughter and ruins her life and so forth.  Really?  She’s dead?  But I KNOW there’s a seventh season coming up!  How is this possible?  It’s tough to muster tears, even when they try SO HARD to jerk them out of my face, when I am totally, absolutely aware that this isn’t really happening.  How could it?  It’s clearly just a dream.

     Now, this presents some questions for Season Seven.  If Allison dreamed about her own death (and the death of another major character), and her dreams always come true, then isn’t she supposed to die at the very beginning of Season Seven?  Isn’t that the logical conclusion here?  But…I bet that doesn’t happen!  The first and last episodes of each season of Medium are always by far the worst.  If you skip them, though, the rest of Season Six is as good as ever.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Comedy
Country:  Canada, United States
Language:  English
Stars:  Jay Baruchel, Colm Feore, Saul Rubinek, Domini Blythe, Michael Murphy, Emily Hampshire
Eye candy:  Hampshire, Jessica Pare
Director:  Jacob Tierney
Run time:  113 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The Trotsky starts out as a very charming movie about a young man (Jay Baruchel) who believes he is the reincarnation of one of the Russian Revolution’s legendary leaders, Leon Trotsky.  Young Leon is basically a nut.  He tries to find a revolution of his own, staging hunger strikes at his father’s office, and generally making a nuisance of himself.  He is so committed to the belief that he IS Trotsky, that he believes his own life will follow the exact path of his hero’s life.

     Baruchel is effective, and charmingly weird in a role that really suits his particular persona (which changes very little from movie to movie).  Even better is Emily Hampshire as Alexandra.  She’s a much older woman (she’s 27 – Leon is 17) who becomes the object of his pursuit when he discovers she has the same name as Trotsky’s wife.  She is gradually pulled into Leon’s insanity, and finds something in him interesting and maybe even intriguing enough to give it a go.  I could certainly see that in him too.

     But just as I started to really enjoy Leon and Alexandra and their bonkers connection, the movie seems to start spinning its wheels, leading to a rather disappointing conclusion where Leon does the only obvious thing – stages a general strike at his school, leading a demonstration against school officials, and so forth.  It kind of feels like a sillier (make that even sillier) version of the ending to Pump Up The Volume. 

     I would say the last 20 minutes of The Trotsky are disappointing.  The movie spent so long building up goodwill and charm that to go through the standard-movie-ending motions in this way lets a lot of air out of the balloon.  So I’m recommending The Trotsky on the strength of the first 70 minutes only.  It comes out October 5th from Alliance Films.

Year:  2008
Genre:  Drama, Action, Crime
Countries:  France, Belgium
Language:  English, French, and Serbian w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Tomer Sisley, Kristin Scott Thomas, Miki Manojlovic, Melanie Thierry, Karel Roden, Gilbert Melki
Eye candy:  Thierry (terrifically hot, some great boobs)
Director:  Jerome Salle
Run time:  109 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

      Largo Winch reminds me a lot of other movies.  For example, it’s a lot like Michael Clayton – it’s about international finance, intrigue, murder and one guy who knows the truth.  Also, Kristin Scott Thomas in Largo Winch reminds me a lot of Tilda Swinton’s character in Michael Clayton.  The efforts she makes to seem self-assured, confident and strong while really being out of her depth, in the end.  There are other movies I could reference.  But who cares?

     The fact is, although there are many similar films, all that means here is that Largo Winch feels familiar.  Not a rip-off, not a tribute, not a hackneyed melting pot of a thousand other ideas.  Just familiar.  Like homemade apple pie.  Or something.  It’s just comforable, and good.  Tomer Sisley is fantastic as the title character (yes, this movie is about a guy named Largo Winch.  Maybe it’s as common a name as Michael Clayton over there in France.)

     Largo is seduced by a woman in South America, framed for drug possession, and thrown in prison.  At the same time, his adoptive father, Nerio Winch, is murdered in Hong Kong.  This leaves Largo the sole heir of his father’s $20 billion fortune, and his company, the W Group.  Although Largo never wanted anything to do with his father’s company or his money, he’s now drawn into this game of international intrigue.

     What follows is a series of chase scenes and double-crosses that span the globe, while we learn a little more about Largo and his personal history – his adopted brother, his family as a child and so forth.  All the while, the board of the W Group is trying to come to terms with the death of their president and CEO while trying to fend off a hostile takeover bid from a rival corporation.

     What makes Largo Winch terrific is the cast.  Kristen Scott-Thomas is likely the most recognizable actor in the film to most of us, and most of her scenes are in English.  Anne Consigny and Radivoje Bukvic are terrific as Largo’s foster family, their scenes are in Serbian.  The incredibly sexy Melanie Thierry is magnificent as the femme fatale Naomi, her scenes are in French.  And some (of the best ones) are in the nude.  Sisley is the star of the film and the best part – holding things together competently and smoothly in all three languages.

     The constant switching from one language to another means you’ve got to wade through a lot of subtitles – the English ones run even when the scene is in English.  But the switching between languages, combined with the taut action and wonderful scenery, really gives Largo Winch an amazing feel that it’s truly “international”. 

     The DVD case has a quote from some critic saying the film is “worthy of Hollywood!” as though that’s a compliment or something.  Something made in France appears to be as slick and shiny as something made in Hollywood!  Would you believe?  Not saying Hollywood doesn’t make good movies.  Hollywood made Michael Clayton, which was terrific (and better than this).  But I, for one, wish that Hollywood made movies as good as Largo Winch.  It comes out October 5th from Alliance Films.

    The Exorcist is obviously the greatest horror movie ever made.  And it will be in theatres, one night only, on Hallowe’en, to raise funds for Operation Come Home.  OCH gets the money only if you buy the tickets in advance, so please do!  October 31st, Bytowne theatre downtown, 10 bucks in advance.  The deadline is October 27th to buy advance tickets, just call Karine at 613-230-4663 or email karine@operationcomehome.ca     Thanks!

Years:  2001, 2002
Genre:  Sci-Fi, TV series
Country:  Canada, United States
Language:  English
Guest stars:  Tom Arnold, Michael Rooker, Tanya Allen, Jeremy Sisto, Sherilyn Fenn, Cameron Daddo, Zachery Ty Bryan, Gabrielle Miller, Zack Ward, Kim Coates, Jeremy London, Dennis Haysbert, Jonathon Schaech, Kerr Smith
Eye candy:  Catherine Mary Stewart, Kimberly Warnat, Allen, Michelle Beaudoin, Fenn, Irene Bedard, Helene Joy, Meghan Ory, Crystal Buble, Gabrielle Miller
Run time:  16 hours, 45 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The Seventh Season of The Outer Limits is the last one, the show ended in 2002.  As the final season of the show, it’s a little disappointing.  The guest stars are just not of the caliber as those of earlier seasons.  This is a show that got Alyssa Milano naked!  A show that featured Ryan Reynolds and Cynthia Nixon before they were famous!  Joe Pantoliano!  Ralph Macchio!  Marcia Cross!  Daphne Zuniga!  OK, I’m really stretching!

     But I’m also really stretching when I list this season’s guest “stars”.  Really, the biggest name is Tom Arnold?  Who’s barely in the first episode?  Who else is there?  Jeremy London?  There’s also Zachery Ty Bryan, who was the oldest kid on Home Improvement.  I think.  And Kim Coates, who I like, but who’s most famous for the six episodes of CSI:Miami in which he appeared.  And the six episodes of Prison Break in which he appeared.  The most recognizeable face here could be Gabrielle Miller, who is the incredibly hot actress who played Lacey on Corner Gas.  Love that woman.

     The episodes are still interesting – but the show had really run its course by the end of the fifth season.  There’s not much left to do here, and the episodes feel repetitive (especially if you’ve recently watched the first six seasons, as I have).  The episode where the kids (the Home Improvement kid included) get abducted from their classroom and sentenced to execution by some giant alien is very, very similar to the episode a few seasons ago where the entire town gets abducted by aliens and is forced to vote to decide their fate – and the fate of all mankind.  Each episode has that ring of familiarity, because at least a portion of each HAS, in fact, been done before by this series.

     I still like The Outer Limits.  I’m glad to have Season Seven, because I’m a completist and I now have all seven.  And I’ll probably revisit all of these in a few years, and when I do I’ll start at Season Seven and work backward.  That way, I’ll have a fresh take on Season Seven, as though these are the original episodes.  And I’ll probably like them a lot more.  But for now, the box sets have been released in way too quick a succession.  Season Seven is the last release, out October 5th from Alliance Films.

Year:  2003
Genre:  Horror
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kevin Dillon, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, Vanessa Angel, Lance Henriksen
Eye candy:  Angel, O’Keefe, several naked boobs from no-name hot chicks
Director:  Richard Brandes
Run time:  95 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     To say someone is “out of their depth” in a movie like Vampires Out For Blood is like saying they’re “out of their depth” in a Slap Chop infomercial.  And yet…I find it hard to use another descriptive term for Kevin Dillon’s lackluster performance in this terrible movie.  He’s a cop, see, and he’s a drunk, and he’s stalking his ex-wife (Vanessa Angel).  So far so good.  I would think about stalking Vanessa Angel, and I’ve never even married her!

     Then he meets some vampires.  Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, specifically.  And she’s all sexy and stuff, and takes him to a crazy-naked orgy, and he’s all like “I’m confused and unsure of myself and realyl nervous”.  THAT is implausible.  I wouldn’t stalk Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, but I would certainly let her lead me into an orgy without many complaints.

     Then the film goes off the rails.  Dillon has been bitten by a vampire now.  So he’s turning into one.  And he goes to the only vampire expert he knows – his ex-wife!  See, she’s a celebrity author of vampire novels.  And she says “oh my God!  Vampires are…real?” and she freaks out at having just learned vampires are actually real.  I put that in italics because it’s important.  We’re coming back to that.

     About two minutes later, the bad guy vampires come looking for the good guys.  And now, Vanessa Angel is a fountain of vampire knowledge!  Here’s how you kill them.  Here is how they operate.  They are all servants of the master.  Crosses burn them…remember that phrase in italics from a moment ago?  She has only just learned they actually exist.  Where is she getting this knowledge?  Is it true because she wrote it in her book?

     Actually, I think Angel, despite her unrelenting hotness, is actually a little “out of her depth” (for lack of a better phrase) in this movie also.  Whereas other stars, like O’Keefe and Lance Henriksen are right in their wheelhouse.  You know, their awful, B-movie, life-after-stardom wheelhouse.  Vampires Out For Blood comes out October 5th from Alliance Films.

Year:  2005
Genre:  Horror
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Paul Campbell, JR Bourne, Sarah Lind, Julian Christopher, Patrick Gallagher
Eye candy:  Lind
Director:  Carl Bessai
Run time:  93 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     It’s got to be really, really easy to come up with an idea for a zombie movie.  So – we just take everything every other zombie movie has already done and…we do that.  Good?  No.  Not good.  Boring, and obvious, and not interesting in any way.  There’s a market for blood-spattered gore, as long as it comes with big naked boobies and some realyl gross skin-eating scenes.  But that’s about as far as it gets.

     So we get an endless parade of movies just like Severed: Forest of the Dead, which dredge up the old zombie movie cliches (an evil company has created a virus in a lab which has unintended side effects!), hire a couple of halfway competent actors, spend all your time figuring out whether it’s cooler to have a face ripped off or a neck chewed apart (and then splitting the difference and doing both), then throw in an ending that is an exact replica of the one from 28 Days Later.

     See, simple!  So easy to do!  But not good.  Or interesting.  Or worth thinking about for another second.  Severed: Forest of the Dead comes out October 5th from Alliance Films.