Year:  2007
Genre:  Documentary, TV series, History 
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Voices:  Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Oliver Platt, Adam Arkin,  Josh Lucas, Keith David
Director:  Ken Burns
Run time:  14 hours
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     At the outset of The War, Ken Burns says that the story of America’s involvement in the second world war is way too big to tell in one documentary.  That kind of gave me pause.  This is Ken Burns talking here.  The same Ken Burns who went into staggering detail telling the entire story of the civil war over the course of more than ten hours.  Who spent more than eighteen hours poring over the minutiae of baseball in one of the greatest documentaries ever filmed.  And with fourteen hours of documentary filming, he can’t tell the entire story of America’s four-year involvement in the second world war?  C’mon Ken Burns, I expect better of you!

     Now, that being said, he IS probably right.  And there IS an awful lot of information crammed into The War.  America was fighting on MANY fronts in the second world war, against the Germans in Europe and Africa, and against the Japanese all over the Pacific.  Burns focuses on four small American towns in the film, following the soldiers who left from those towns to serve their countries in various battlefields.   It’s a fascinating look at life in America during war time, and it’s something I haven’t seen before in a World War II documentary.  After all, we know that the Americans got into the war with Pearl Harbour, and that they ended the war with the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, but it’s what happened in between that’s absolutely fascinating.  And there’s no one better to tell that story than Ken Burns.  The War is available on Blu-Ray May 15^th.  And like I have said about every other monumental documentary Ken Burns has ever done, go pick it up!

Year:  2012
Genre:  Horror
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman, Evan Helmuth, Ionut Grama, Suzan Crowley
Director:  William Brent Bell
Run time:  83 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The Devil Inside is one of those handheld documentary style horror movies that seemed so new and fresh ten years ago when The Blair Witch Project led into Diary of the Dead and Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity and so forth.  It remains an effective style, because it can still create sudden creepiness and some decent scares.

     But to stand out, a movie needs to do something I haven’t seen before.  I am so familiar with this genre now that I can pretty much telegraph every coming scene long before it arrives on screen.  And so it is with The Devil Inside, which adds nothing new to an already overdone genre.  There are some good moments and some good camerawork, especially when the possessed people contort their bodies in all kinds of gruesome and humanly impossible ways.  There are also some solid acting performances, notably from the two guys who play the young priests performing exorcisms that are unsanctioned by their Vatican superiors.

     But every time the movie started to get interesting it reverted to the same old formula.  I thought for a moment that there would be a really interesting conversation about science and theology and the connection between the two when it came to exorcisms, but it ended as quickly as it began, and it was right back to the demons and the panic.  The Devil Inside is about as average as horror films get – it’s on DVD May 15^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Years:  1980
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Robert Urich, Phyllis Davis, Bart Braverman, Greg Morris, Will Sampson, Tony Curtis
Guest stars:  Erin Gray, Jill St. John, Priscilla Barnes
Eye candy:  All kinds.  Strippers, showgirls, hookers, everyone is apparently hot in Vegas. 
Creator:  Michael Mann
Run time:  9 hours, 51 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The Robert Urich series Vega$ comes back to DVD May 8^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, as they release season three volume one.  As always, the show presents the Vegas of the 70s as an endless parade of hot showgirls and brainless thugs and neon lights.  Which is awesome.  And as always, Dan Tanna gets his man and gets the girls and gets the job done fifty minutes at a time.

     There is one notable exception though.  The first episode of Season Three of Vega$ does not take place in Vegas.  Which is a little disappointing because the Vegas locales are the best part of the show.  Instead, the third season starts off with a two-part episode set almost entirely in Hawaii. 

     It’s a ridiculous premise, where Tanna gets kidnapped and shipped to Hawaii in a box.  When he gets out of the box, some mysterious gangster scientists try to convince him to kill his friend Philip Roth, played by the great Tony Curtis.  Then he escapes, gets recaptured, and they try to brainwash him instead.  The two-parter to kick off Season Three is easily the worst episode of Vega$ I have ever seen.

     Thankfully, after that clunker, it’s back to Vegas and showgirls and good old detective work.  Which is all Vega$ should ever have tried to be. 

     I think one of my favourite things about Vega$ is how UNmemorable each episode actually is.  And I don’t mean just for me, the viewer.  I mean for the characters themselves.  There’s an episode on this volume where Dan Tanna is dating a woman at the beginning.  Then Dan shoots a cat burglar, feels guilty about it, and spends the whole episode investigating his own shooting.  at the end of the episode, he finally gets to spend some time with his girl!

     Then the following episode arrives, and it’s a whole new girl.  As though the last one never existed at all.  But this time – Tanna’s in love!  Even after discovering that Priscilla Barnes lives a secret life as a highly-paid call girl, he STILL loves her.  And only then, of course, does she decide to quit the life.  Which makes little sense if you think about it – but it’s best not to think.  Because of course she will be murdered before the episode is over.  After all, they need to bring in a new girl for the next episode, and love is all complicated.

     One of those girls was Erin Gray, who later gained a measure of fame on TV shows like Silver Spoons and a nerd following with Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.  I mention her only because she is in Ottawa this coming weekend with ComiCon.  Not exactly a reason to buy Season Three Volume One of Vega$, but a reason to attend ComiCon, anyway.

Year:  1995
Genre:  Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:   English
Starring:   Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Donald Faison, Elisa Donovan, Breckin Meyer, Wallace Shawn, Jeremy Sisto, Dan Hedaya
Director:  Amy Heckerling
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Clueless until I saw the Blu-Ray release, out May 1^st from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I had even forgotten that Alicia Silverstone was once really hot and a pretty decent actress.  Although I will say that putting out a video of her spitting chewed up food into her baby’s mouth was a pretty poor way to get her back into the public eye, and a weak promotional idea for the Clueless Blu-Ray.  I think a Playboy spread or something might have generated more interest and less cringing.  Just a thought, remember that when Excess Baggage gets the Blu-Ray upgrade.

     I had also forgotten that Brittany Murphy and Paul Rudd co-starred in Clueless before they went on to bigger and better things.  (Or – in Murphy’s case – sadder and more tragic things.)  The weirdest thing about the movie though, is that the REASON I couldn’t remember liking it in 1995 was that I didn’t really remember anything at all about the movie.  Because it isn’t memorable. 

     It’s vapid, and empty, (and that’s the point), and it is genuinely a LOT of fun.  But the empty kind of fun, like eating a whole tub of cookie dough ice cream or spending two hours and three hundred bucks at a strip club.  You come out of it knowing you had a good time, but four hours later you can’t for the life of you put your finger on exactly why.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Action
Country:  United States
Language:   English
Starring:  Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Michael Angarano 
Director:  Steven Soderbergh
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     I don’t think Haywire was designed as a starring vehicle for MMA superstar Gina Carano.  Yes, Carano has serious star power.  She’s definitely hot, and unlike 99% of the female action stars out there she has serious ass-kicking bonafides, in that she was a real force in womens’ mixed martial arts for a few years.

     But when fighters or wrestlers or someone of that ilk tries to break into movies, it’s never done this way.  When John Cena or Stone Cold Steve Austin stars in a movie, it’s directed by some guy who runs cameras at WWE Raw and maybe once did a 1-800-Victim-2 commercial, and it co-stars Treat Williams. If you’re lucky.

     But then we get Haywire.  Which stars Gina Carano of the MMA.  And it’s directed by Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven).  And it stars Ewan McGregor.  And Michael Fassbender.  And Antonio Banderas and Michael Douglas and Channing Tatum.  You know, people with NAMES.  And – even more rarely for a fighter’s starring vehicle – it’s GOOD.

     Carano is an operative for some kind of secret, high-level independant contractor that specializes in black ops.  She is betrayed by her employers and goes on a prolonged rampage where she kills people and beats up other people.  It’s pretty cool, if a little predictable.  Nothing we haven’t seen before, but slick.

     One thing though.  For those of you looking for a super-hot chick who can kick ass, you’re still better off renting Underworld for the ninth time and looking at Kate Beckinsale in tight leather.  Because although Gina Carano IS blazingly hot, Soderbergh has purposefully dulled her up through most of the movie.  And even at her hottest, she is no Kate Beckinsale.  Compared to other MMA fighters, she’s a 25 out of 10. (Cyborg, I’m looking at you.)  But compared to Hollywood actresses, she’s middle of the pack.  That being said, the fact that she can kick my ass is a huge selling point for me.  I love this woman.

     All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t seek out Haywire based on the female lead.  Carano is great, but the movie stands on its own merits – frenetic, fast-paced action, big stunts, and a whole bunch of silly but fun black-ops intrigue and fistfights.  That’s more than enough for me.