Years:  1978, 1979
Genre:  TV series, Cop, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Kam Fong, Al Harrington
Creator:  Leonard Freeman
Run time:  19 hours, 51 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Season Eleven of Hawaii Five-O was on television when I was an embryo.  Or a zygote.  So it’s odd for me to feel intense nostalgia for something I never experienced at the time when it would have actually been nostalgic.  But I guess it takes a really silly retread of something to create that feeling – having just watched the first season of the new Hawaii Five-O, I actually DO long for a simpler time.

     A time when Wo Fat was a cartoonish evildoer, a creepy Bond-like villain.  A time when the bikini girls were just gratuitous montage shots between scenes, rather than actual members of the cast.  A time when Chin Ho was just some guy in the police station, rather than a main character with a suspect back story.  And a time when McGarrett and Danno had to worry about mafia and punks and corporate killers, instead of serial killers and terrorists.

     Most of all though, I miss the realistic banter between McGarrett and Danno – banter that came easily and naturally between two men of the law who respected and liked each other, and came only occasionally when it fit.  So much better than the forced buddy-cop love-hate banter that has become a prerequisite for all cop shows of today.  Today, McGarrett and Danno fight over food, over the radio, over their driving, over everything.  In the 70s, they just solved crimes.  Oh, the good old days.

     Thankfully, as Paramount Home Entertainment releases the first season of the NEW Hawaii Five-O on DVD today, they are also releasing the eleventh season of the old Hawaii Five-O.  I think it’s clear which one I recommend more.

Years:  1977, 1978
Genre:  TV series, Cop, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Kam Fong, Al Harrington
Guest stars:  Jean Simmons, Kurt Russell, Tim Matheson
Creator:  Leonard Freeman
Run time:  19 hours, 51 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     In the tenth season of Hawaii Five-O, out December 14th from Paramount Home Entertainment, there are a lot of exotic bad guys.  The first episode is about an IRA terrorist, a man who dresses up like a priest and tries to get weapons and explosives through Hawaii.  Why someone would want to get weapons through Hawaii in order to bring them back to Ireland for the purposes of terrorism, I have no idea.  But he seems like a nice enough sociopath, and he has a hot chick accomplice, so that’s alright.

     Then there’s an episode about a super-rich Greek guy and his giant-ass boat that is taken over by armed thugs.  And then there’s the European babe tennis star who defects with her boyfriend.  And I’m thinking, what’s with all these exotic foreigners, Hawaii Five-O?  Is Hawaii itself no longer exotic enough?  The palm trees and the random girls in bikinis and the smoking babes that populated every episode needed some sprucing up?  A little added sex appeal?

     Whatever.  I’m just stretching for something to say, really.  It’s Hawaii Five-O.  It’s fun.  The DVD set is good to have around because you can always throw on an episode and enjoy it.  And it’s Season Ten, on DVD now.  And that’s all I got.

Year:  1978
Genre:  Action, Kung-fu
Country:  Hong Kong
Language:  Mandarin w/ English subtitles, English dubbing
Starring:  Kuo Chue, Chiang Sheng, Sun Chien, Lo Meng, Lu Feng, Chen Kuan-Tai, Johnny Wang, Philip Kwok Tsui, Jamie Luk, Pan Ping-Chang, Dick Wei
Director:  Chang Cheh
Run time:  109 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     You gotta love old-school kung fu.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  You don’t have to love it.  But you oughtta.  And I absolutely adore these movies.  The totally questionable morality, the bonkers plot ideas, the crazy fight scenes that are half cheesy and awkward, and half violent and amazing.  Return Of The Five Deadly Venoms is a terrific example of all that makes old-school kung-fu kick ass.  See, there are these four guys, all crippled by the same evil kung-fu master.  One has been blinded, one has been deafened, another has had his legs chopped off, and the fourth has been turned into a giggling idiot with no brain.  And maybe, with their forces combined, they can defeat the kung-fu superman!

     Things get off to a fantastic start.  In order to exact revenge for some unknown slight, three bad guys show up to do bad deeds.  Discovering that their intended target is not home, they decide to do serious harm to his family.  The exchange of dialogue goes something like this:

  “Cut off the wife’s legs and the son’s arms”

  “Okay.”

     And so it begins.  Now the wife has died from her injuries, missing legs and all, but the son survives and his missing arms are replaced with iron fists, making him even more powerful at kung-fu.  The experience has embittered both he and his father, the kung-fu master, become douchebags, tyrants in a small town.  Everyone is afraid of them, except for these four guys.  So they blind and deafen and amputate and lobotomize them.  Because they have become douchebags.

     Now, I know what you’re thinking.  Wait – if there’s only four of them, why the FIVE deadly venoms?  Where do they get the FIVE?  There are three main bad guys – the kung-fu master Chu Twin, his son Chu Cho Chang, and his right-hand man who wields a club on a chain like that young schoolgirl in Kill Bill.  So including them, that makes seven.  There is a sort of good-hearted bad guy who shows up near the end to fight the four heroes, but in any permutation that would still give us either four or eight.  The “Return” portion of Return of the Five Deadly Venoms makes little sense either, as this film has absolutely nothing to do (plot-wise) with the original Five Deadly Venoms.

     No, the only connection between the two is The Venom Mob, a group of actors from the Shaw Brothers studios in Hong Kong in the 70s and 80s who often performed together.  So the two movies have pretty much the same cast.  Which is fine, but why not give this movie another title entirely?  Well, they kind of did – one name for this movie is Crippled Avengers, a more apt title since it makes no obvious connection with a movie with which it has…no obvious connection. 

     That being said, I’ll make a comparison anyway.  Five Deadly Venoms is a superior film.  It’s funnier in a cheesy way.  It’s cheesier in a funny way.  The kung-fu itself is more interesting and exciting and better.  And there is a more cohesive plot (if such a thing is even possible in one of these films).  And since it’s a sequel in name only, and has nothing to do with the first film, there is no need to get both movies to be a completist.  However, there are merits to Return of the Five Deadly Venoms, mostly that the cast is cheesily terrific and the kung-fu is more hit than miss.  There are a couple of scenes involving iron rings that are as intricately choreographed as anything in early Jackie Chan movies.

     So it’s worth it.  It may be the weakest, so far, of the Dragon Dynasty Shaw Brothers re-releases on DVD from Alliance Films, but all of them have so far been worth while in some way.  The whole crippled-kung-fu-fighters bit was entirely overdone in the 70s and 80s, but FOUR of them, in one movie?  Awesome…

Years:  1974, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990
Genre:  Cartoon, Political
Country:  East Germany
Language:  No dialogue, German credits not translated
Directors:  Otto Sacher, Klaus Georgi, Sieglinde Hamacher, Marion Rasche, Hans Moser, Thomas Rosie, Lutz Stutzner, Peter Mibach
Run time:  57 minutes
Special Features:  Behind The Scenes at the DEFA Animation Studio, film essays, biographies and filmographies
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     The description of Red Cartoons indicates that it’s a collection of 16 short animated films from the former East Germany, produced by the country’s DEFA Sutiod For Animation Films between 1974 and 1990.  These films are apparently full of social and political satire that would never have been allowed in live action films by the oppressive regime at the time.  That being said, I can find that satire in only a few of the shorts.

     This had me feeling like an idiot for a long time – how come I can’t see the subversive nature of these cartoons?  Am I so poorly versed in the customs and conventions of the former East Germany and, indeed, the world that I’m the only one who can’t see this stuff?  I GOT the cartoons, but not the satire.  What’s wrong with me?

     The first cartoon is called Drum Beat.  And, admittedly, I didn’t understand that one at all, even as just a cartoon.  This guy has a drum, see.  His wife drops it on his head, but that’s cool he has more.  Then he walks around with it and ends up in a drum band.  That’s about it.  I don’t get it.

     The second film, from the same director (Otto Sacher) is called Stars And Flowers.  At least I got that one.  A guy who lives in the stars longs to touch the flower on the ground, and a guy who lives on the ground longs to touch the stars in the sky.  Loneliness sees a shocking abuse of emergency services as an old man sets fire to his Christmas tree so he will have the companionship of the fire department and the ambulance attendants.

     Variants sees two neighbours in a dispute over what appear to be raked leaves, and although a trip to court works out their differences, it doesn’t fix their animosity toward each other.  The Rescue is a tale of greed and selfishness which involves a remarkable number of people who manage to fall down a series of crevasses.  Seven Rights of a Viewer explores seven different ways an audience can respond to a performer, from the great (showering him with flowers) to the terrible (getting up and leaving).

     Hello sees an unfortunate man, plagued by noises everywhere he goes and trying to escape.  Deserted islands offer him no solitude, nor do forests or mountains or anything else.  Eventually he meets Satan in the desert.  I think I get that one.  Consequence is a satire I get.  After applauding vigorously for a film that details how driving in cars pollutes and destroys nthe environment, the audience gets into their cars and drives home.

     The Solution involves a bunch of birds sitting on a wire.  One little bird at the end is a non-conformist, which of course means he sits the opposite direction as the rest of the flock.  And of course his little friends rat him out.  And he gets roundly punished.  Until eventually everyone else comes around, so to speak.  Belly And Soul is about people feigning interest in the performance of a pianist while secretly trying to get to the massive spread of food that has been laid out following the concert.

     The Breakdown sees a man desperately asking for help at the side of the road, as his car has apparently fallen in a hole.  Finally, th smallest car stops to help and pull him out, with surprising results.  I get the satire in this one too.  That makes two.  The Full Circle is the story of a plant that produces gas masks, polluting so much in the process that the people in the town are forced to wear…gas masks, of course.  And Mr. Daff Is Shooting A Film makes a joke out of a poor sap of a bus driver.

     The Monument sees the unveiling of a massive statue to great applause, then people forget about it pretty much right away.  Then the statue gets a phone call.  And ends up alone in what appears to be a desert, in an Ozymandias sort of finale.  I don’t really get it.  Sunday seems to depict a church, where everyone is going to look at a plant, and tickets are being ripped at the door and everyone, including the priest, is getting patted down.  I guess to make sure they are not bringing in their own water bottles or snacks.

     The final short on the set is Island Joke, wherein three shipwrecked and frozen men have a chance to warm themselves up with a blanket tossed to them by a helpful mermaid.  Not understanding the gesture, they do what they figure is most obvious with the blanket – they build themselves a flag and salute it.  Here, again, is a satire I can understand.

     About four of the sixteen shorts are obvious satires, at least to me.  Maybe six.  I would have really liked to see a special feature that explained a little more.  There are several special features on the disc, but one is a wordless slide show that just shows people working at DEFA, and the others are essays about the East German film industry and animation.  Which is all great stuff – very informative and interesting, but I would have liked to see something that dealt more specifically with the sixteen films that were chosen to be featured on this disc.

     Even though I didn’t understand a few of the films, I liked them.  I thought they were all charming, and this is a disc I can see myself watching over and over.  But the fact that I liked them all so much was the reason I wanted to know more about them.  Thanks to the special features I know a little more about the directors and a lot more about the East German industry, but no more about the films themselves.  Red Cartoons comes out January 19th from First Run Features.

Years:  1978
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Robert Urich, Phyllis Davis, Tony Curtis, Bart Braverman, Naomi Stevens, Judy Landers, Greg Morris, Will Sampson
Eye candy:  All kinds.  Strippers, showgirls, hookers, everyone is apparently hot in Vegas.  Also Cristina Ferrare, Lauren Tewes, Dorothy Malone, Ronee Blakley and Kim Basinger
Guest stars:  Morey Amsterdam, Abe Vigoda, Don Porter, Antonio Fargas, Sid Caesar, Slim Pickens, Strother Martin, Pernell Roberts, Cesar Romero, Doc Severinsen
Creator:  Michael Mann
Run time:  9 hours 27 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras:  Episodic promos on selected episodes.  That’s it.

     If ever a TV series cried out for some nudity, it’s Vega$.  In the late 70s, Robert Urich starred in this series as a private investigator in Las Vegas.  Call girl murders, Miss Casino pageants, strippers and showgirls and hot women everywhere else.  Most of them need to be naked to ply their chosen trades, but of course it was 1978.  And television.  So there were no nipples.  But lots of eye candy.  Heck, even Dan Tanna’s (Urich) receptionists were ex-showgirls (one efficient and competent, one a stupid airhead – it was like Three’s Company but in Vegas). 

     Of course, Vegas has a pretty seedy underbelly, and that makes it the perfect venue for shows that get off on a large amount of titillation.  Like this one, and CSI.  Not just titillation of a no-clothes sexy women nature, but also the voyeuristic thrills of pimps and gambling and mob bosses and casino politics.  The supporting cast is remarkable as well – Greg Morris (Mission: Impossible), Will Sampson (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest), and even Tony Curtis, who shows up on occasion.  Curtis is billed as one of the stars of the show, but he’s in only a few of the episodes on Season One Volume One of Vega$, out October 20th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

     This show really was no better than the sum of its parts.  Those parts are entertaining though.  Hookers and gamblers and babes and tough-guy private investigators and his massive sidekick who beats up anyone who looks at him sideways.  Robert Urich is a lot of fun, and although he’s smarter and tougher than everyone else, he doesn’t always get it right.  In the two-hours series pilot, he gets taken in by a slot machine scam artist who is being pretty obvious about his attempt to take him in.  Then again, that’s a very small part of the pilot, which also involves a runaway girl with suspect parents, a murdered pimp and a murdered call girl, a Vegas entertainer who hires Tanna to be his bodyguard, and some women for Tanna to sleep with.  It’s a lot to take in, but it all comes together…somehow.

     Thankfully, further episodes focus on one issue at a time, most of which bring more hotties in to parade about in feathers or lingerie.  It’s all positive.  And it’s all fairly entertaining.  It just isn’t great.  At times, it isn’t even good.  But overall it’s worth it.

“Ah!  The toad style!”

Year:  1978
Country:  Hong Kong
Language:  Mandarin w/ English subtitles, English dubbing
Starring:  Kuo Chue, Chiang Sheng, Sun Chien, Chiang Sheng, Lo Meng, Lu Feng
Director:  Chang Cheh
Run time:  101 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     It’s a tough call when it comes to deciding whether to watch The 5 Deadly Venoms, out August 25th from Alliance Films, in Mandarin with English subtitles or with the English dubbing.  There is a third audio track, also in English, which is a commentary track by Hong Kong cinema expert Bey Logan, and I recommend that one also.  But mostly, I recommend watching this movie dubbed.  Yes, it is better with subtitles.  But this movie is not about being good.  It’s about being awesome.  And the dubbing is cheesy and in some cases nonsensical and that just adds to the bonkers tone of the whole film. 

     I actually watched the movie with the dubbing on and the subtitles, just to see how well they matched up.  It turns out they barely match at all, and in some cases the English dubbing and the English words mean two completely different things, which means that depending on how you watch, The 5 Deadly Venoms is two different movies.  Maybe you should watch it twice.  I’d be curious to know whether the dubbing or the subtitles are closer to the actual words spoken in Mandarin, but that’s where the commentary track comes in handy.

     This is one of those kung-fu classics that will seem vaguely familiar to people who do certain things.  I understand that the film is referenced in that online game World of Warcraft.  And that there is a comic book based on the five styles of kung-fu presented here.  For me, I recognized some of the lines in the movie because they are used as drops in albums by the Wu-Tang Clan.  This movie has become the very definition of a hard-to-find cult classic, referenced throughout pop culture in a very subtle and hard-to-spot way.

     Well, it isn’t hard to find any more.  As part of the Shaw Brothers collection from Dragon Dynasty, distributed in Canada by Alliance Films, The 5 Deadly Venoms is (finally) available easily on DVD.  Much like earlier Shaw Brothers releases Heroes of the East and Come Drink With Me, this movie is a cheesy, silly, but absolutely awesome kung-fu movie that is still influential today.  I think it’s fantastic that these films are being released on DVD now, because until this time I had to make do with the grainy, cheaply-made, terribly dubbed $1.12 kung-fu DVDs from the Wu-Tang collection that were being sold in bulk at Wal-Mart.

     Anyway, on to the movie.  The old master of the “Poison Clan”, a notoriously evil clan of warriors, is about to die.  He entrusts his very last student with a mission – track down the other five students that have left the clan, and kill them.  If they are good men living good lives, then they may be spared.  But if they are evil, he must take them down.  The big problem is that no one from the Poison Clan can use their kung-fu style in the open, because it is forbidden.  And notorious.  Which means it will be very difficult to identify them.  Each one has their own particular style-specialty – the lizard, the snake, the centipede, the scorpion and the toad.

     The coolest character in the film is the toad, which is too bad because he’s the only one who doesn’t make it to the end of the movie.  We learn early on the identities of the snake, the centipede, the toad and the lizard.  The big question throughout the film is “who is the scorpion?”  When we do finally learn his identity, it doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but it’s still well done and there is a pretty badass revelation toward the finale of the film.  A finale which, by the way, comes with a totally awesome five-way fight scene as the lizard and the young student take on the snake, the centipede and the scorpion.

     In the meantime, there are murders, arrests, police corruption, judicial corruption, the silencing of informants and the despicable murders of innocent prisoners in their cells.  Some of it is a little shocking – like one scene where a young man has a steel barb on a pole jammed down his throat.  But for the most part it’s intrigue, and it’s a mystery, and it’s badass kung-fu guys doing badass things.  And what more do you want in a movie?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To hear the review

      Thankfully, on Paramount Home Entertainment’s Forever Funny TV Set, there is no Walker Texas Ranger to ruin the mood.  Instead, this is just a solid collection of the premiere episodes or pilots of some of the most classic comedies ever to grace the television sets of North America.  I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Brady Bunch, The Odd Couple, Frasier, Cheers, and Taxi are all represented here.  Now, Paramount also distributes The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Happy Days and several other classic comedies which might have made a little more sense than Frasier, in terms of old-school classics, but I love Frasier.  So I won’t complain.  Much.  Here are the premieres, in chronological order:

     I Love Lucy (1951): 

     “Happy Anniversary, Ethel.”

     The very first episode of I Love Lucy sees Fred and Ethel fighting over what to do on their anniversary.  Fred (and of course Ricky) wants to go to the fights, while Ethel (and of course Lucy) wants to go to a nightclub.  Soon, the old cranky couple have decided to go sepearately, and Lucy stirs the pot by trying to find dates for her and Ethel.  Of course, this makes Ricky and Fred decide to find dates for themselves, which end up being Lucy and Ethel in disguise and…well, you can guess the rest, I’m sure.  We all know I Love Lucy, we all know it’s hilarious, and one of the best comedies ever.

     The Honeymooners (1955): 

     “You wanna go to the moon?  You wanna go to the moon?”

     Although Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) is constantly threatening his wife Alice with phyiscal violence, he has, to my knowledge, never actually struck her.  At least, not on screen.  But The Honeymooners must at least present Ralph as a potential domestic abuser and a ticking time bomb of rage.  As he and Ed Norton (Art Carney) split the cost of a TV set, and then fight over what programs to watch, I got the sense that Gleason was, at any moment, capable of snapping and commiting a brutal murder.  And I found that hilarious.

     The Brady Bunch (1969): 

     “Dad’s gonna take the girls’ side on everything from now on.”

     I wasn’t aware that when The Brady Bunch began, Marsha wasn’t yet old enough to be smoking hot.  But she was still a little girl in 1969, when the show began with a wedding.  The man, you see, has a bunch of boys.  The boys have a dog.  The woman, obviously, has a bunch of girls.  And the girls have a cat.  Because men like boys and women like girls and boys like dogs and girls like cats.  And they are all going to live together after this big ol’ wedding, and hilarity will ensue!  In the meantime, the little kids say all kinds of cute and smarmy things, paving the way for the 80s and the Olsen twins saying “dude” on Full House.  Thanks a lot, Brady Bunch.

     The Odd Couple (1970): 

     “They think I’m a hypochondriac?  That makes me sick.”

     The people who made the Odd Couple TV show must believe that everyone tuning in already knows the whole concept, either from the movie or the Neil Simon stage play.  And they’re probably right.  I think we all know the idea.  Felix is neat and anal.  Oscar is slovenly and rough.  And they have troubles…the premiere episode of this classic comedy introduces the weekly poker game, the Pigeon sisters who live upstairs, and the angrily tolerant dynamic between Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.

     Taxi (1978): 

     “I’m playing the horse.”
     “Which end?”

Years:  1978
Genre:  TV series, comedy, sitcom
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Andy Kaufman, Jeff Conaway
Eye candy:  Marilu Henner
Creators:  James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, Ed Weinberger, David Davis
Run time:  30 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The first episode of Taxi is a surprisingly sweet one, as Judd Hirsch runs off to attempt to re-connect with his daughter whom he hasn’t seen in fifteen years.  And of course, Tony Danza is a stupid guy and a terrible boxer, Danny DeVito is a tiny little loudmouth jerk, Andy Kaufman is just learning to speak English and acting creepy, Jeff Conway is an actor who gets no roles and isn’t very good, and Marilu Henner is the smoking hot woman who just started working as a taxi driver.  And they’re in New York.  And that’s the show.

     Cheers (1982):

     “A drunk?  A drunk?  Why, Sam was the greatest drunk there ever was!”

     The first episode of Cheers introduces Cliff and his stupid and questionable facts, Norm and his apathy toward his wife, Carla and her scathing wit, Sam and his womanizing, Coach and his idiocy, and Diane.  Mostly, the episode is all about Diane, who has come into the bar for the first time on her way to the airport with her soon-to be husband.  He is an intellectual, of course, and he will ditch her in the bar to go back to his ex-wife.  Of course.  So Diane sits there and annoys everyone in the bar for hours with her snobby holier-than-thou attitude, and eventually ends up with a job there.  And so began Cheers.

     Frasier (1993): 

     “My wife had left me, which was very painful.  Then she came back, which was excruciating.”

     The debut episode of Frasier opens with Frasier Crane on his radio program, explaining succinctly and in a neat little package why he left Boston and Cheers and moved back to Seattle for his own spinoff show.  Quickly, we meet neurotic Niles and space cadet Daphne and of course Frasier’s dad Martin, who moves in with his son in the first episode.  And the dog Eddie, who stares at Frasier.  And Martin’s chair, which drives Frasier nuts.  We don’t get to see Maris, but we know she’s a cold ice queen.  And Roz is sardonic and mean, but has a heart of gold.  Yep.

“I feel like a defective typewriter…I skipped a period.”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To hear the review

    Very little about Grease makes sense.  It is populated with singers who can’t act, dancers who can’t sing, actors, who can’t dance, and various combinations of all three.  Today, when an actress can sing AND dance, or a singer can dance AND act, they call them a “triple threat”.  That must have been a foreign concept in 1978, when Grease took the world by storm.  Because not one person in the entire movie could do all three.  Not only that, but they were saddled with some of the silliest, most awkward teenager-in-high-school dialogue of all time. 

   The special feature on this Blu-Ray (out May 5th from Paramount Home Entertainment) that deals with the history of the movie should be called Greased Lightning In A Bottle, because it’s pretty clear to me that the director and producer and actors of the film really did catch lightning in a bottle to make this as big a success as it obviously has been.  There is no getting around it – Grease is an absolutely dreadful movie.  And every girl in the entire world absolutely LOVES it.  They LOVE John Travolta IN it.  They LOVE the songs.

   There is something else I couldn’t understand about Grease.  The second I brought home the Blu-Ray, My girlfriend leapt for it, then leapt for the remote control, and quickly scanned through the special features until she found the one where there was a karaoke version of every single song, with the words on the screen and so forth.  And she sang every song in the movie, most of the time not even looking at the words scrolling across the screen.  And I sat there, it shocked amazement, utterly flabbergasted that someone could be so very much into this film.  Let alone my girlfriend.  Let alone every other girl she knows.

   One thing I ought to mention here – I am not a car guy, by any stretch.  So I thought maybe I was not identifying with the male characters and their songs about carburetors and fuel-injection because I have no idea what they are talking about.  Other than “Greased Lightning”.  Or something.  And maybe I’m not the right kind of tough-guy.  Maybe I like my tough guys to be quiet and calm yet dangerous, like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne or Charles Bronson.  So I don’t understand how guys who sing and dance and comb their hair a lot can be considered “tough”.  I thought perhaps these were the things holding me back.

   But this isn’t the case.  What is holding me back is that I am not a woman.  And Grease has managed to create male characters women want, female characters with whom they identify, and a story line and songs that make them swoon.  If women still swoon, that is.  And in doing so they have created something that excludes men almost entirely.  I have never met a man who liked Grease, and although I sat through it with my girlfriend, and admired the Blu-Ray transfer, the expression of rapt attention and glee on her face was more irritating than it was infectious.  Try as I might, I could not share in her enthusiasm.  And I really, really tried.

   When the movie was done, we went through the non-karaoke bonus features.  They included a retrospective look at the movie (NOT called Greased Lightning In A Bottle), a scene involving the Paramount DVD release party in 2002 where Olivia Newton-John adn John Travolta sing their famous songs in front of a crowd, a totally useless director’s introduction, and eleven deleted and alternate scenes.  Then dancing tutorials and a ton of other stuff.  I watched all of it, for one reason.  I have heard, for years and years, that behind the scenes of Grease the entire cast pretty much engaged in a gigantic orgy for the entire duration of the movie shoot.  I have heard this from many many sources.

   All I wanted was some discussion of this.  I don’t want to hear that this is the best-selling movie musical of all time.  I don’t want to hear that Travolta played a different character when the musical was on stage.  I wanted to hear who got with whom, and how, and why, and what kind of crazy antics were going on.  Maybe it’s just me, but that’s where my morbid curiosity leads me.  But unfortunately, none of these details were on the Blu-Ray disc.  Just more interviews with people who said “oh, it was so much fun, and everyone was so nice”.  Well, fine.  But that’s the standard pro-athlete interview type stuff, isn’t it?  You just won the game by five goals despite being badly outplayed.  SAY something about it!