Year:   2011  
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Director:  Alan Govenar
Run time:  80 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     There is a very neat documentary coming out July 24^th from First Run Features about the Beat Hotel, a place in Paris where almost all the big-time artists of the Beat generation congregated over a number of years to hang out, get high and produce some of the great works of the 50s. William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Gregory Corso, pretty much everyone except Jack Kerouac was there at one time or another.

     It was at the rundown, dirty, dirt-cheap Beat Hotel where Burroughs finished Naked Lunch, where Ginsberg wrote arguably his masterpiece, Kaddish, and where Corso wrote his famous controversial poem Bomb. This story is told in the documentary, as well as neat little anecdotes about Burroughs rehearsing his storytelling in the hallway and his infamous dream machine, or about Ginsberg and Orlovsky and their weird love triangles.

     Now, I keep using the word “neat” because that’s what The Beat Hotel is. It’s a neat little film full of neat stories about neat people. But it’s not great, mostly because they’re all dead. And although there are a few people who make appearances, there is really only one narrator, a photographer whose picture permeate the film. There are a few re-enacted scenes, and a sort of reunion celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Naked Lunch. In the end, the movie made me want to visit the Beat Hotel, in the 50s, but never gave me much more than that. The whole thing feels like an 80-minute snapshot of that five or six years when the beat artists lived together. And that’s just…kinda neat.

Year:   2011  
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  United States
Language:  English, Chilean (with subtitles)
Directors:  Brian Lilla
Featuring:  Dam builders, dam opponents, and citizens of Chile
Run time:  80 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     On July 24^th, First Run Features releases Patagonia Rising, a documentary about a proposed dam project on rivers in Chile. This project would create five hydroelectric dams on two rivers, generating an enormous amount of electricity for the region but at a very high price.

     The environmentalists in the film explain the impact of massive dams in a very patient manner. Then some local farmers put a face on the environmental consequences that would result from the building of the dams. Then, I guess just to appear a little more balanced, they talk to the guy overseeing the project, who explains that the dams would produce electricity for the region equivalent to five coal fired plants and are therefore more environmentally friendly. In the end though, the film makers come down decidedly on the side of the people in the region and against the dams.

     This is all OK, but a lot of it feels like filler. I liked being walked through the effects dams have on the environment and the local ecosystems. Before now, the only thing I knew about dams was that I once went to the Hoover Dam and thought, holy cow, that’s big! It’s just that with the interviews of Chilean people who don’t seem to know much about the situation, Patagonia Rising felt like a 30—minute documentary stretched out to 80.

Year:   2011  
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Director:  Alex Trudeau Viriato
Featuring:  Fixed-gear cyclists
Run time:  40 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     I was surprised to find out that there was a documentary about fixed-gear bike riding. That’s the kind of biking where you have only the one gear, and you brake by pedaling backwards.  Is there really enough information about this kind of activity to warrant a full-length feature documentary?

     Well, it turns out no. As Fixation, out on DVD July 24^th from First Run Features, runs only about 40 minutes. We meet riders in San Francisco who like that city because of the difficulty of the hills and the bike-friendly motorists. Then we meet others from Los Angeles, who like that city because of the great distances they can cover in a single day. There are also interviews with Olympic racers, bike polo players, and bike messengers.  They all like the fixed gear bikes. Okay.

     Not being a big time biker myself, I had a passing interest at best in this stuff, which meant that the 40 minute or so run time was perfect. I actually really enjoyed the snapshot of the culture, which I think is probably more suited to those unfamiliar with fixed-gear riding, as those in the scene already would know all about it. Fixation is interesting, it’s short, and it’s worth a look.

     Also – there is a sort-of vague Ottawa connection, the same way we claim Matthew Perry and Tom Cruise because of their brief residence here – the director of Fixation, Alex Trudeau Viriato, was born and raised in Ottawa before moving to California. So, there’s that, also.

Year:  1962
Genre:  TV series, Western
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker
Creator:  David Dortort
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Bonanza was trending on Twitter for a second yesterday.  For a minute, I actually thought that it had something to do with the release of Season Three on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment today. Well, for a second I thought that.  Then I realized that this was unlikely, and I figured out that Bonanza is now some online shopping site like eBay. Colour ME disappointed.

     The Bonanza I know is a TV show from the 50s 60s and 70s. That’s because I’m seventy-eight years old. And so it was with great familiar pleasure I sat down to watch the stories of Hoss and Little Joe and Ben and Adam Cartwright as they work on the Ponderosa and get into adventures. In this case Hoss kills a drunk and has to deal with his creepy brother, then the whole gang gets stuck in the middle of a shootout between a corrupt military officer and a band of Indians led by the famous Cochise.

     In short, it’s Bonanza. It’s season three of the Cartwrights and the Ponderosa and gunfights and somber moralizing. You either like it or you don’t, and I like it. I certainly like it more than I like shopping online.

Year:  1999
Genre:  TV series, Drama, Soap Opera
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Heather Locklear, Lisa Rinna, Kelly Rutherford, Alyssa Milano, Jamie Luner, Rena Sofer, a bunch of other hot women and some men.  I think.
Creator:  Darren Star
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Gosh, I have no idea how to do this without spoliers…I’m trying to review the final season of Melrose Place, both volumes of which come out July 24^th from Paramount Home Entertainment. But at the same time, I know that a lot of people still haven’t seen The Dark Knight.  If I give away the series finale of Melrose Place, those who haven’t seen it will be angry. And if I give away the ending of The Dark Knight, there will be hundreds of thousands of angry people around here.

     The thing is, they end the same.  Only with Heather Locklear in the place of Batman and that Peter guy in place of Catwoman and the other guy in place of Alfred and the crazy Eve chick in the role of Bane.  So how do I describe the ending of the one without ruining the other? I just can’t do it now.

     Okay. Here’s how it’ll have to be. If you want to see The Dark Knight Rises without spoilers, do NOT rush out to buy the final season of Melrose Place. And if you want to see the final episode of Melrose Place from a fresh perspective, then wait to see The Dark Knight Rises.  Cool? Okay, that should be good with everyone. Or, forget you read this review at all.

Year:  1990
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Tom Bosley, Tracy Nelson, Mary Wickes 
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The Father Dowling Mysteries was a TV show starring Tom Bosley as a priest who never, ever calls the police, even when it is eminently logical that he do so.  Season two of the Father Dowling Mysteries comes to DVD July 10th from Paramount Home Entertainment, and it opens with an episode where a hitman poses as a visiting priest in order to assassinate a man in witness protection.

     Of course, Father Dowling and his trusty sidekick Steve the nun are immediately suspicious of this new priest when his stories don’t add up. Then a parishioner who recognized the man is murdered right there in the church. Now, I would call the police if I suspected the new priest was an imposter who was killing folks. But then, I am not Father Dowling.  So he and Steve go out to investigate. When they manage to tie the hitman to a well known local gangster, do they call the police then? Of course they don’t. They go to visit the gangster. He won’t do anything to THEM, they’re wearing God clothes. Except that of course he DOES decide to kill Father Dowling. And of course Steve saves him. Now, they know who is going to be assassinated, when, where and how. NOW they call the police. Thank God – no pun intended. Father Dowling asks to speak to the only cop he knows. The police tell him that cop isn’t in. So he HANGS UP! Ah, crap. The only cop in all of Chicago is busy, we’re gonna have to stop this hitman ourselves!

     The rest of Season Two is very similar. Father Dowling goes around solving crimes, when in reality he should be dead by the end of every episode. Eventually, I assume, he will get his. After all, Father Dowling is no longer on the air, and it would make great sense for them to have killed him off in the finale. He certainly deserves it.

Year:  1968
Genre:  Sci-Fi, Cult, Classic
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jane Fonda, Anita Pallenberg, John Phillip Law  
Director:  Roger Vadim
Run time:  98 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I have a hard time picturing Jane Fonda as anything other than the grandmotherly fitness instructor on so many workout videos.  I’ve even reviewed some of her workout videos, and to me, that’s who Jane Fonda is. A very fit grandma with big hair and a friendly smile. Maybe the oldest person alive who can still make yoga pants work for her.

     So when I started watching Barbarella, on Blu-Ray July 3^rd from Paramount Home Entertainment, it took me a while to reconcile THAT Jane Fonda with the current Jane Fonda. The Jane Fonda in Barbarella is not going to bake you cookies and gush over your performance at your piano recital. She’s going to get naked, dance around and have sex with everyone she meets. This is Jane Fonda circa 1968, and I was surprised to discover that she was, at that time, the hottest woman in the world! 

     Now of course, when Barbarella isn’t having sex or running around in skimpy outfits, the rest of this movie is god-awful. It’s just a lot of cheesy science fiction talk and flying around with an angel and a spaceship that looks like electronic brass knuckles for some reason. But naked Jane Fonda? In high-definition? That’s why Barbarella became a cult classic in the 70s, and that’s why it’s the best thing being released today!

Years:  1974, 1975
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Karl Malden, Michael Douglas
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Streets of San Francisco was one of those shows that was cool more for who was in it than for what was in it. Because WHAT was in it kind of sucked. It was just a cop show set in San Francisco where bad guys did stuff and good guys caught them. None of the content was great, and the production values were so low that Streets of San Francisco couldn’t even showcase the one thing that could have set it apart from other shows. That being, the streets of San Francisco. Some of the greatest car chases in movies and TV have happened on those streets. None of them were on the show actually named after the streets.

     The reason Streets of San Francisco is worth watching is for the cast.  The magnificent Karl Malden, winding down his career by slumming it on this show, and the extremely young Michael Douglas as his partner, launching what would turn out to be a fantastic career by using this show as a stepping stone. And it’s a stepping stone you can now get on DVD, when Paramount Home Entertainment releases Season Three Volume One and Season Three Volume Two on July 3^rd.

Years:  1973, 1974
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Mike Connors, Gail Fisher, Robert Reed
Theme music composer:  Lalo Schifrin
Run time:  21 hours 18 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras:  Not much of anything
Related reviews:  Mannix Season Two, Mannix Season One, Mannix Season Three, Mannix Season Four, Mannix Season Five

     When I sat down to watch Season Seven of Mannix, on DVD July 3^rd from Paramount Home Entertainment, I went through a rollercoaster of emotion! The first episode is about a clairvoyant who predicts a murder attempt on a lady in a polka dot dress and hires Mannix to try to stop it. And I thought oh, no! A sure sign of decline in a TV program is to do one of those clairvoyant episodes where they leave it up in the air at the end as to whether or not it’s real and blah blah blah…so I was depressed.

     Then it turned out that it was all just a big setup, and the fake psychic was just setting Mannix up. Mannix was the target of the murder attempt, not the girl! And I was like, whew! That’s MUCH better, thank heavens Mannix isn’t jumping the shark already, here in the seventh season by trying some obnoxious ESP twist. And THEN I thought, wait a minute – so this whole episode is about someone trying to kill Mannix? EVERY episode is about someone trying to kill Mannix! In the end, this episode is exactly the same as every other Mannix episode. And then I was like…meh

Years:  1985, 1986
Country:  United States
Genre:  TV series, Soap opera, Drama
Language:  English
Starring:  Joan Collins, John Forsythe, Linda Evans, John James, Diahann Carroll, Billy Dee Williams, Heather Locklear, Jack Coleman, Pamela Bellwood, Gordon Thomson, Michael Nader, Catherine Oxenberg 
Guest starring:  Pamela Sue Martin, Kevin McCarthy, Billy Campbell, John Saxon, Richard Hatch, Rock Hudson, Matthew Lawrence, Emma Samms, Kerry Armstrong, Maxwell Caulfield
Creators:  Richard Shapiro, Esther Shapiro
Producer:  Aaron Spelling
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I received volumes one and two of the sixth season of Dynasty last week. Both are coming out July 3^rd from Paramount Home Entertainment, and although I’m still irritated at the idea of splitting up TV seasons into volumes for their DVD releases, at least both volumes of the season are coming out at the same time.

     Not that I was super-thrilled at the idea of sitting down to watch the entire sixth season of Dynasty over the weekend.  Yeah, Heather Locklear’s all hot and vindictive, but lookalike imposters and underhanded plots and Joan Collins being awful don’t really make for a pleasurable marathon viewing experience.  Dynasty is okay in small doses. 

     But then I put in the first disc, and hold on!  That’s right! There was that huge massacre at the end of season five, where it looked like every single character in the show had been killed by MOLDAVIANS! There WAS a reason to watch all of a sudden! Who was dead? Who was still alive? How many major cast members would be gone? Oh. It turns out…none. Yeah, there was the gay guy’s boyfriend and Ali McGraw, both of whom were minor characters at best.

     Then I started thinking, while watching the rest of season six.  Suppose a regular person had lived through this terrorist attack and massacre. They thought their family was dead, they saw passers-by gunned down around them. Wouldn’t that bring a regular family closer together? Wouldn’t you put aside your petty differences? I think I would. I don’t think I would seize that moment to defraud my family of a fortune. I would wait at least six months. Then again, this was Dynasty, and the show must go on!