Year:  1998
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

     Here’s some of the eye candy in Season Six, Volume Two of Melrose Place.

     That’s just a small sample.  There are far more hot women who show up on Melrose Place, act devious, seduce people, wreck marriages and homes and generally misbehave.  This show had some of the hottest women ever in the cast – but that begs one question…is it worth it?

     Yes, there are a whole lot of hot chicks wearing small dresses and behaving badly and seducing men and so on.  But at the same time, none of them ever get naked, none ever DO anything terrifically hot, and you have to watch a soap opera to see what they do.  You stole my husband/boyfriend!  You stole my wife/girlfriend!  You stole my idea/company!  You plotted against me/us!  You ate half my pomegranate/grapefruit!  

     I think, in the end, that Melrose Place IS watchable.  I still remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry takes the polygraph test to prove he doesn’t watch Melrose Place.  I remember that Seinfeld episode because Seinfeld was a great show and had thousands of memorable moments. 

     Melrose Place, on the other hand, was NOT a great show, had very FEW memorable moments, but as Jerry Seinfeld suggested fifteen years ago, it IS a guilty pleasure.  And nothing more.

     Alliance Films is releasing The King’s Speech on DVD April 19th, and also The Royal Collection box set.  Which contains The King’s Speech, The Queen, The Young Victoria, Shakespeare In Love, and Vanity Fair.  At first, I assumed the box set was being released to celebrate the Oscar success of The King’s Speech (Best Picture, Best Actor for Colin Firth). 

     On closer examination, however, it says quite clearly on the box – this DVD set is being released to commemorate the Royal Wedding!  That Prince William Kate Middleton thing coming up in a couple of weeks.  I guess the idea is that people will buy the box, get their royal on for a couple of weeks, and be extra-pumped for the Big Day involving people they have never met and will likely never pay attention to again.

     I like most of the movies on this set.  I think that some are great.  I hope people DO buy this box set, because a lot of these films are worth owning.  But if you buy it in preparation for the royal wedding, I will think less of you.  Much less.  Just saying.  Anyway, here are the five films, and their accompanying reviews.

The King’s Speech (********8/10)

[youtube iMqBl-K2Z1s]

Year:  2010
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Jennifer Ehle, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi
Director:  Tom Hooper
Run time:  111 minutes

     It seems that there is a fairly easy formula to follow when it comes to making a run at a bunch of Oscars.  Make a period piece starring mostly British actors about a British monarch.  (The Queen, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Peter O’Toole, Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave…and so on.)  Now, if only there were some way to get Nazis into the movie also, it would be a shoo-in, right?  As it turns out, yes.

     The King’s Speech, of course, deals very little with actual Nazis.  The scourge of Hitler and his war in Europe serve only as the catalyst for the speech of the title.  King George VI (Colin Firth), in 1939, had to speak to all of Great Britain in a radio address on the occasion of the declaration of war against Germany at the beginning of World War II.  In order to make this incredibly important speech, the king sought the help of speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush) in an effort to correct his rather pronounced stammer.  Logue’s methods are not exactly traditional, and he insists upon calling the new king by his childhood pet name, Bertie.

     The stutter tends to come out of Bertie only when he is nervous or flustered, which seems to be most of the time.  He and Logue delve deep into his childhood, in increments, over the course of the movie, but it’s never clear whether some childhood trauma caused the stammer, or if there is a breakthrough of any kind on that front.  Really, this is just a story about two men from two distinctly different classes becoming friends and learning to trust each other.  Logue is a failed Australian actor with a certain amount of disdain for the monarchy, Bertie has spent his whole life shielded from the common class by the bubble that surrounds the royal family.

     And that, along with the performances by Rush and Firth, is the strength of the movie.  The class distinctions are drawn expertly, and the attention to detail in the costumes and backdrops is remarkable.  The strange thing for me though is that the King overcoming his speech difficulties is actually the second most interesting thing happening in the film.  At the time, and in the history of the British monarchy, the biggest story of the past hundred years was the abdication of the throne by Bertie’s playboy brother Edward (Guy Pearce) so he could marry thrice-divorced Wallis Simpson (Eve Best).  That was a gigantic scandal at the time, and remains one of the most interesting stories in the history of the British royals.

     The fact that Edward’s abdication and carelessness are treated as a minor subplot irks me a little.  It seems to be thrown into the movie more as a way to show the callousness with which Edward treats Bertie than as a seriously large event.  It’s a minor quibble though with an otherwise terrific movie.  British royalty period pieces always get nominated for Oscars.  But they rarely interest me throughout, and even more rarely do they manage not to bore me.  The King’s Speech is NOT the best movie made this year.  Even though won Best Picture, as it was designed to do.  But it IS one of the best British period films made in a long time.  And that makes it well worth seeing for anyone.

The Queen (*********9/10)

Year:  2006
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Helen McCrory, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Sylvia Syms, Mark Bazeley, Earl Cameron, Tim McMullan
Director:  Stephen Frears
Run time:  101 minutes

     Although Helen Mirren has long been one of the most respected British actresses in the world, it wasn’t until The Queen in 2006 that she attained real international celebrity to go along with the accolades.  A Best Actress Oscar win will do that.  Or maybe it was just that the world needed 27 years to get the taste of Caligula out of their collective mouths.  No pun intended.  Actually hey – this is a royal box set!  Shouldn’t it contain Caligula as well?

     This same year, as Mirren was winning an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, she was also winning several awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in a made-for-TV miniseries.  That made this her definitive role, almost 40 years into her magnificent career.

     Michael Sheen, on the other hand, stars here in HIS definitive role, one that he managed to score in only his third starring appearance in a movie.  That movie was 2003′s The Deal, helmed by Stephen Frears, a TV docudrama about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown opposing Margaret Thatcher.  His remarkable resemblance to Tony Blair gave Michael Sheen a role for life.  In The Queen, also helmed by Frears, he played Blair for the second time.  And then again in The Special Relationship.  And likely many more times to come.  People are, right now, dreaming up movie scripts about Tony Blair simply because Michael Sheen exists.

     The two are wonderful in The Queen, which is the best movie in this set.  In addition to Sheen and Mirren, a fantastic script from Peter Morgan.  At the beginning, Queen Elizabeth and Blair are just as we expect them to be – almost comical in a way, as our perceptions of the Queen’s regal attitude border on silliness.  Then, halfway through, the tone of the film changes entirely, and we get a deep, serious look at the doubts that plague both protagonists.

     As the Queen herself, Mirren is flawless.  She is not just regal, she exudes authority by her very presence.  And while it may be easy to laugh at the frivolities of the archaic monarchy, it’s a nervous laughter we experience when the subject of the mockery is also a truly intimidating personality.  This movie works beginning to end, and is very close to being absolutely perfect.

The Young Victoria (******6/10)

Year:  2009
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent, Thomas Kretschmann, Mark Strong
Director:  Jean-Marc Vallee
Run time:  100 minutes

     It’s got costumes!  And royalty!  And soul-searching and wistful longing and staring and pageantry!  What more could you ask for in a royalty-themed British-accented period piece?  Well, more Oscars, maybe.  No Oscars for The Young Victoria, which at heart is a pretty pedantic if sumptuous entry into the familiar royals-when-they-were-young category of movies.

     Emily Blunt is suitably icy-fiery as the young Queen Victoria, as she ascended to the throne as a teenager.  Of course, being unmarried, who she chose as a husband carried with it international implications.  All that is fine, but how much actual ruling did she do?  Who cares – the only thing that can make a royalty-themed period piece appeal even more to people who like royalty-themed period pieces is a romance.  In this case, the romantic entanglement comes courtesy Prince Albert (Rupert Friend).

     To be fair, The Young Victoria does, in fact, involve a fair amount of country-ruling.  The only problem is that much of the problems Victoria faces as the young, inexperienced monarch of a country are seen through the prism of the romance, which has to be the central theme of the movie.  The Young Victoria is decent, and had it been actually good, it might have won Oscars.  Costumes, British accents, and romanceromanceromance!  It hit all the bases.  2009 must have been a very disappointing Oscar year for this average movie.

Shakespeare In Love (******6/10)

Year:  1998
Genre:  Drama, History, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Imelda Staunton, Ben Affleck, Tom Wilkinson, Jim Carter, Martin Clunes, Rupert Everett
Director:  John Madden
Run time:  122 minutes

     One of the most undeserving Oscar winners in recent memory was Judi Dench.  Not that she wasn’t fantastic in her role as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, but she had about four minutes of screen time.  Best Supporting Actress?  Usually that means you were in the movie. 

     One of the least deserving Best Actress Oscar winners in recent memory was Gwyneth Paltrow.  Not that she wasn’t super-hot in Shakespeare In Love, and passable as the charming Lady Viola who disguises herself to appear as a man in stage plays.  But the role really, in the end, had little substance.  Joseph Fiennes, as Shakespeare, was better.  But he was not even considered for a Best Actor, really.  Maybe because he’s Joseph Fiennes.

     And perhaps the least-deserving Best Picture Oscar winner in decades…Shakespeare In Love!  Oh, it’s a decent movie.  It’s even above-average, and the screenplay really is wonderful (and the screenplay DID deserve an Oscar).  And not to rehash all the bad blood from a decade ago, but here’s a quick list of films that did NOT win the Oscar in 1998…The Thin Red Line, Out of Sight, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Elizabeth, Life Is Beautiful…oh never mind.  Here’s one title to sum it all up -Saving Private Ryan.

     So now that I’ve complained, all over again, about the Oscar travesty of 1998, I will now turn my attention to another complaint.  How come this movie is in the “royalty” box set?  Was it that four minutes of Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth?  Or does “royalty” now just mean “British people in costumes”?

Vanity Fair (****4/10)

Year:  2004
Genre:  Drama, Period
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Reese Witherspoon, Romola Garai, James Purefoy, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Rhys Ifans, Gabriel Byrne, Jim Broadbent, Bob Hoskins, Ruth Sheen
Director:  Mira Nair
Run time:  140 minutes

     William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel was a biting, caustic satire of the British class system.  Here, Vanity Fair (and its heroine, Becky Sharp) get some serious star power from Reese Witherspoon.  And a serious dumbing-down from screenwriters and directors and producers and everyone else involved with the film.  In the novel, Becky is a very unlikeable, unsympathetic heroine.  At times, even downright detestable.

     In this 2004 movie, Becky has all her hard edges dulled, her more caustic personality traits eliminated, and even at her absolute worst, Witherspoon makes sure that Becky remains charming and likeable.  Which has the effect of completely missing the point of the whole story.  When bad things happen to Becky, we feel like the world is being unfair, and we feel sorry for her.  Poor Becky, things are going from bad to worse!

     That’s not the Becky I expect.  This ambitious, backstabbing, vicious social climber is not to be pitied, she is getting what’s coming to her.  And, in fact, not nearly enough of what ought to be coming to her.  But this movie simply refuses to make her unsympathetic.  Or maybe it’s in Reese Witherspoon’s contract.  “I MUST play a charming rogue at worst!”

     One thing I will say for this version of Vanity Fair – it’s the only movie I have ever seen where the main character is named Becky but she is NOT perky with a pony tail and tight track pants with headphones on.  So…that’s something.  And once again, I would point out that just because it’s a period piece does not make it a “royalty” movie.  That connection is tenuous at best for the worst movie in this box set.

Year:  1997, 1998
Genre:  TV series, Crime, Action
Country:  Canada
Language:  English
Starring:  Cameron Daddo, Carrie Anne Moss, Christina Cox, Jacqueline Torres, Jason Blicker
Eye candy:  Moss, Cox, Torres
Producers:  Jay Firestone, Stephen Downing
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films   

     At the beginning of Season Two of FX, on DVD October 26th from Alliance Films, the cop who starred in the first season is killed.  This is done so they can replace him with a hot babe cop who will take his place.  And THAT is being done because this show needed more hot babes.  Anything to make it at least a little bit interesting.

     Here’s the thing though.  My DVD remote was screwing up, so I couldn’t move around in the menus, and therefore couldn’t access the play-all function on these DVDs, so I could only watch the first episode on each disc of Season Two.  Also, because of the way the DVDs slide around inside the package, two of them were damaged and the episodes wouldn’t play.  Alliance has this new way of packaging TV series, that they’ve been using for about six months, and every time I get a TV series from them, at least one of the discs is screwed up because they’re all over the place by the time the thing gets opened.

     So I managed to watch only three episodes of season two.  One was the first one which introduced the new hottie, and the other two were about stuff blowing up and people disguised as other people.  All three were boring.  At least this series stars Christina Cox, one of my all-time favourites.  There were no pictures of the DVD online anywhere, because I guess no one else cared about it.  So I included a picture of Christina Cox.  At least I like her, if not her series.

Year:  1998
Genre:  Sci-Fi, TV series
Country:  Canada
Language:  English
Starring:  Robert Leeshock, Von Flores, Lisa Howard, Richard Chevolleau, Leni Parker, Anita La Selva, David Hemblen
Eye candy:  Surprisingly little, for a sci-fi series
Crea0tor:  Gene Roddenberry
Run time:  15 hours, 46 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The “good” alien in Earth: Final Conflict is named Da’an.  Which is a pretty lame name.  One that could have been dreamed up for an alien by putting strange-sounding names into a computer and running a program that would spit out “alien” sounding names.  Da’an!  Zo’or!  See, Da’an is the “good” one, “Zo’or” is the evil one…even the name of the alien race itself, the “Taelons”, sounds appropriately alien-ish.  They look like…well…aliens.  The bulbous, hairless heads, the soothing, monk-chanting type voice.  It’s all so – usual.  The aliens, their voices, their names, are exactly what one would expect from aliens.  This is fine, but it just feels wrong.  Every moment I see an alien on this show, I feel like it has been designed by a committee and tested through a focus group.  Is this what everyone thinks aliens are?  Good.  Then let’s proceed.

     But it isn’t just the aliens themselves that feel like the product of a focus group.  The cast, the plot, the writing all feel like they have come out of a giant computerized alien-dialogue generator.  In Season Two, out July 27th from Alliance Films, there is a pretty major casting change.  William Boone (Kevin Kilner) was the square-jawed, all-American (or, in this case, all-Canadian) hero of Season One.  In Season Two, he turns up dead, and is replaced by another square-jawed all-American hero, Liam Kincaid (Robert Leeshock).  Why?  I suspect that the focus group behind this show decided that Kilner was too old and therefore not young-and-sexy enough.  So they replaced him with a younger version of the same guy.

     Now, I suspect that these committees were still at work throughout the run of the series, and are still pulling the strings now that Earth: Final Conflict is on DVD.  On the DVD cover of Season Two, the picture features Kevin Kilner, and not Robert Leeshock.  Why, I wondered.  Kilner is in Season Two only as a body floating in some liquid for a moment in the first episode.  Then he is gone.  Why is he on the cover?  I think it’s because the focus group determined that HE was a more recognizeable face, and a bigger star, than was Leeshock.  So better play up HIS involvement while you have a chance.  I guess this means the 1998 focus group was wrong.

     This show claims to be the brainchild of Gene Roddenberry, the man behind Star Trek.  His is a big name in sci-fi, and following his death this show and Andromeda both bore his name.  I guess he had jotted down some ideas about aliens and spaceships before he died, and using his name was a good way to get nerds to tune in.  For one or two episodes, anyway.  But the man was dead.  And he didn’t write Earth: Final Conflict.  A focus group did.  And the show sucked as a result.  One more thing – wouldn’t a focus group come up with the idea to add some hot chicks?  If there’s one thing every sci-fi show ever has, it’s hot chicks in tight clothes.  Nerds love that.  Earth: Final Conflict is surprisingly devoid of eye candy.

Year:  1998
Genre:  Sci-Fi, TV series
Country:  Canada, Germany
Language:  English
Starring:  Brian Downey, Eva Habermann, Xenia Seeberg, Michael McManus, Jeffrey Hirschfield, Tom Gallant
Eye candy:  Eva Habermann, Xenia Seeberg, Louise Wischermann
Creator:  Paul Donovan
Run time:  14 hours, 15 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Two episodes into Season Two of Lexx, out July 20th from Alliance Films, the absolute best reason for watching Season One disappears abruptly.  Eva Habermann (Zev), one of the hottest women ever to appear on television, gives up her life for the rest of the crew of the spaceship, and is gone.  Then she gets replaced by Xenia Seeberg (now known as Xev, which is remarkably pronounced the same), who is also very hot.  But no Eva Habermann.  This is nothing against Ms. Seeberg.  She is a sensational beauty, to be sure.  But why fix what isn’t broken? 

     I have tried, as hard as I was willing to try, to find out what happened halfway through Season Two.  Was it a contract dispute?  Did the producers think they needed a different, hotter woman?  Did Eva Habermann finally get to actually see the first season of this show and walk off the set, depressed about her life?  What was it?  I would think, that with the sci-fi nature of this show, and the relationship between sci-fi and nerds, and the nerdiness of the internet, there would be an easy answer to be found.  But for some reason, there is none.  It just happened.  Like that season where Bo and Luke Duke were replaced by two almost-identical actors named Mo and Puke or something like that.  These things just happen, I guess.  (Although to be fair – the Dukes of Hazzard season was because of a contract dispute, and that’s well known.)

     The worst part was, I was really beginning to love Eva Habermann.  She got a little naked in the first season, teased a bit, and set up a really interesting second season where she had an out of control libido, little chance of satisfying her urges, and would likely get a lot more naked a lot more often.  Then – she’s gone!  And I have to get used to Xenia Seeberg instead, which is pretty easy to do I guess.  But Seeberg’s very first episode is one where she goes to a brothel to get some!  This was what I was hoping for from Habermann, but it was not to be.  Not like she got laid anyway…no one ever actually got laid on this show, although they talked about it a lot.  On the plus side, they got a little naked.

     This show would have done a lot better had it been called The Lexx, instead of just Lexx.  It’s a simple word, “the”, but it would have worked.  When I saw the TV ads for this show, I thought it was just about a hot chick named Lexx.  And I never bothered to watch it because I thought that just having a sci-fi hot chick for nerds to drool over would make for a very bad show.  In a way, I was absolutely right.  In another way, I was wrong.  The SHIP is called the Lexx.  Not the woman.  Maybe I would have watched it had I known that.  And then I could have enjoyed the hot babe, who was the only reason to watch anyway, under the pretense that I was watching for the ship.  The way I used to watch Kianna’s Flex Appeal for the fitness tips, and read Playboy for the articles. 

     At any rate, this show was all about the hotties and the boobs.  This season is the only one with both hotties, and gets a better rating from me as a result.  I have put both up on this post, so you can decide for yourself.  If you like Eva Habermann (the one on the right), then pick Season One.  If you like Xenia Seeberg (on the left), then pick any other season.  And if you want to have a season of Lexx that involves both, then Season Two is the only way to go.

  Good Will Hunting (**********10/10)

Year:  1997
Genre:  Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Robin Williams, Stellan Skarsgard, Minnie Driver, Cole Hauser, George Plimpton
Director:  Gus Van Sant
Run time:  127 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Good Will Hunting remains one of my favourite films of all time.  It achieves a stunning balance between drama, romance, comedy and genuine badass intellectualism.  Has there ever been a more badass intellectual scene than the one on the video included in this review?  The writing in this film is remarkable – maybe the best written scene in the whole movie is one between Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgard at a pub, a scene all about Ted Kaczinski.

     It’s really two things that make this film great.  The writing and the acting.  Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won an Oscar for their screenplay, and there’s no question it was well deserved.  And Damon is flawless in the film as Will Hunting, a young man with incredible intellectual gifts who just doesn’t want to live the life of a professional Brain.  He hangs out with his friends, gets into fights, boozes it up and works menial jobs, partly because that’s all he has ever wanted to do, and also because he is scared to do realize his full potential.

     Soon, he is discovered by a math professor (Skarsgard), who sees in this boy an untapped genius who could change the world.  But he needs, somehow, to get through to the troubled Will.  Enter the other sensational actor in this film, Robin Williams.  He plays a psychiatrist who is entrusted with Hunting, and he’s expected to bring the full potential out of the rebellious kid.  It isn’t an easy task.  But it sure is a fun one to watch.

     Also terrific is Minnie Driver, as the Harvard student love interest who, in her own way, helps Will change his perspective on his gift and on the world.  Good Will Hunting is simply a fabulous movie, and a magnificent addition to any DVD collection.

  Rounders (*******7/10)

Year:  1998
Genre:  Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, Gretchen Mol, John Turturro, Famke Janssen, Lenny Clarke, Martin Landau
Director:  John Dahl
Run time:  125 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Coming right on the heels of Good Will Hunting was Rounders, which traded off Matt Damon’s sudden popularity and the fantastic teaming of two incredible young actors – Damon and Norton – to elevate what could have been a rather silly and cheesy B-movie to one that was more than worthwhile.  Yes, there are some silly scenes.  For example, the oreos – anyone think that wasn’t going to factor in the end somehow?

     But Norton and Damon are so good as the compulsive troubled gambler and his poker prodigy buddy that I forget the silliness.  And although John Malkovich, the Ultimate Bad Guy Poker Player, is a bit of a cartoon, he’s such a fun cartoon that it doesn’t matter.  I’ll still enjoy The Cincinnati Kid more as the ultimate poker movie, but I will always hold a soft spot in my heart for Rounders.  As the second-best movie in this double feature, out March 2nd from Alliance Films, Rounders makes this single-disc bargain purchase that much better.  It’s a must.

Year:  1998, 1999
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling, Tiffani Thiessen, Jason Priestley, Ian Ziering, Luke Perry, Brian Austin Green, Lindsay Price, Vanessa Marcil
Eye candy:  Garth, Thiessen, Price, Marcil, Laura Leighton
Creator:  Darren Star
Producer:  Paul Robinson
Run time:  19 hours 6 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Without Hilary Swank, Season Nine of Beverly Hills 90210 has little historical significance.  Well, unless you’re an obsessive weirdo who thinks enough of this show to put the clip of Donna and David almost getting back together up on youtube.  Where I can go and take the clip and put in at the top of this review to demonstrate just how silly caring about this show really is.

     That being said, there are certain things that make season nine a little more interesting.  No longer does the whole show seem like a silly cheesy after-school special in every single episode beginning to end.  The season opens in an irritating manner, with Kelly (Jennie Garth) and Brandon (Jason Priestley) wimping and wincing about their wedding, which was abruptly canceled in the last episode of season nine.

     Fortunately, by the end of that episode, Val (Tiffani Thiessen) has shown up to slut around and make me excited for a moment, and then drops the “I murdered my own father” bombshell.  Which is almost interesting enough to make me want to move on to Episode Two.  Almost.  But I was worried that if I actually got into Season Nine of Beverly Hills 90210, that I would spend the next 19 hours and 6 minutes watching it, which would certainly turn my brain to mush, lower my IQ by about thirty points, and(at least temporarily) disable my ability to process simple tasks like swallowing after chewing.

     Okay, I DID watch a bit of Episode Two, I’ll admit it.  I was a little intrigued by the addition of another smoking hot cast member, Sophie (Laura Leighton).  See, she starts living with Steve, who is a total loser (the writers might have you believe he is a “fool for love”, but he is really just an idiot), and then she gets the hots for David,  even though he’s played by Brian Austin Green, and this puts a strain on the David-Steve relationship, which appears to be more gay than it actually is, but once the boys talk about Sophie, everything is fine somehow.

    From there, the season moves on to tackle topics that are not your usual 90210 fodder.  Val’s murder of her own father, Kelly’s rape, dark family secrets and horrible coincidences.  And I applaud them for that – at least they had the guts to tackle some dark subjects.  The problem is that they may have the guts, but they don’t have the chops.  90210 was a show that simply didn’t understand human misery, human emotion or the way people interact with each other.

     And despite the dark subject matter, it still comes off as cheesy.  It’s like throwing a rape scene into the middle of a Happy Days episode.  Everyone’s eating burgers and shakes, and they’re hoping to hold hands at the dance and then – rape.  In the 90210 universe, this can be dealt with by eating more burgers and drinking more shakes and holding more hands, and eventually the Fonz goes “whoa” and everything is fine again.  I’m glad they tried.  I just wish they had succeeded.  Season Nine of 90210 comes off as a low-rent Degrassi.  Seriously.  Degrassi looks like an Abel Ferrara TV series compared to this one.

“It’s open season on all suckheads”

Blade (********8/10)

 Year:  1998
Genre:  Action, Comic book
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Dorff, Udo Kier, Donal Logue
Eye candy:  N’Bushe Wright, Traci Lords, Sanaa Lathan
Director:  Steve Norrington
Run time:  121 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films
Related reviews:  Blade trilogy

     The original Blade movie was terrific, a real breath of fresh air in the world of comic book movies.  Wesley Snipes was big, muscular, bad-ass and mean.  Kris Kristofferson was amazing as Whistler, Blade’s mentor.  And Stephen Dorff was terrific as the bad guy, a vampire who wanted to trigger the Blood Tide – an event that would, I think, turn everyone in the world into a vampire.  Or something.  The point is, this movie was awesome.  Sword fighting, guns, vampires disintegrating and great special effects, and Snipes as the most ass-kicking, toughest, meanest comic book character of all time.  There was even some good comedy – mostly provided by Donal Logue, who kept getting his arm chopped off.  And for the really cult comic book fans – some appearances by Traci Lords and Udo Kier.  Terrific!  The second Blade is still better, but I love the original too.

“Every time someone farts, a demon gets his wings”

Spawn (***3/10)

Year:  1997
Genre:  Comic book, Action
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Michael Jai White, John Leguizamo, Martin Sheen
Eye candy:  Theresa Randle, Melinda Clarke
Director:  Mark A.Z. Dippe
Run time:  97 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     If there is one thing that ruins Spawn (and make no mistake, this movie is RUINED), it’s John Leguizamo as the disgusting, irritating, obnoxious clown.  I THINK he’s supposed to be comic relief.  But there is nothing funny about him at any moment in this awful, awful movie.  If there are other factors ruining Spawn, there are a few to choose from.  A ludicrous plot, Martin Sheen’s illogical, nonsensical character, an unnecessary appearance by a cute young kid to add some heart to the film, and some silly special effects involving a cape that seems to billow and flap erratically for no good reason.  Other than that, Michael Jai White is pretty good, and most of the movie is visually impressive.  If only John Leguizamo and the kiddie stuff had been taken out.  This would be an AMAZING nine-minute movie.

“I trust only one person Jax, and you’re looking at her.”

Mortal Kombat (*****5/10)

Year:  1995
Genre:  Action, Video game
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Robin Shou, Linden Ashby, Christopher Lambert, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
Eye candy:  Talisa Soto, Bridgette Wilson
Director:  Paul W.S. Anderson
Run time:  101 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Mortal Kombat verges on being a movie that is so-bad-it’s good.  Nothing but fights, most of them poorly done and poorly choreographed, and a plot that is less than threadbare.  Of course, it’s a battle for the fate of the world.  And for some reason there is a hot chick there (Bridgette Wilson, who has no idea how to fight), and a self-centred movie star (Linden Ashby, who is also a rather unconvincing fighter).  The bad guy makes absolutely sure that the hot chick and the movie star go to his martial arts tournament.  We never know why.  The good guy learns his lessons from his creepy and useless master (Christopher Lambert) just in time to defeat the bad guy…somehow…thanks to the lessons.  I think.  There is a poorly animated monster who also fights. 

     This was one of the first movies based on video games.  And despite being truly dreadful, Hollywood kept making more video game movies, for some reason.  In fact, this movie was successful enough to spawn (no pun intended) a sequel where only Robin Shou returned.  And Talisa Soto, which was nice.  Sonya Blade was now played by Sandra Hess, who was maybe a little hotter but no more convincing than Wilson.  Mortal Kombat was, cinematically, an utter failure.  But it was a pretty entertaining one for those of us who love the awful.

     Why these three movies were packaged together, I don’t know.  Two are comic book movies – but one (Mortal Kombat) is not.  Two involve giant black guys flexing, but one (Mortal Kombat) does not.  Two involve martial arts moves and fight scenes, but one (Spawn) does not.  Two of them were absolutely dreadful, but one (Blade) was not.  I guess there was enough crossover to merit this set.  But I would still go with the Blade Trilogy, if I had my druthers.  And I DO have my druthers.

“Sometimes the crow comes back…”

Year:  1998
Country:  Canada
Language:  English
Starring:  Mark Dacascos, Katie Stuart
Guest starring:  Corey Feldman
Creator:  Bryce Zabel
Run time:  3 hours 40 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     You know how sometimes bands come out with a “Greatest Hits” album after making only two individual albums?  Example – remember the Olsen twins?  Mary-Kate and Ashley, the ones who had a media empire of vast proportions and were terrifically interesting until they became of age?  Anyway.  At one point, I worked in a CD store that stocked eight Olsen Twins albums.  They recorded music, you see.  Of the eight albums they had out, three of them were “Greatest Hits” albums.  I’m not sure the math really adds up there.

     Which is why I’m skeptical of the marketing that went into the DVD The Best of the Crow Stairway To Heaven, out August 25th from Alliance Films.  I mean, it lasted 22 episodes.  That’s it.  Are there really five episodes that stand head and shoulders above the rest?  I guess so.  But if these five episodes represent the cream of the crop, I am certainly not up for watching the rest of the show.  It occurs to me, having never seen the show, that I might have liked to see the five most relevant episodes.  Like, the first, which might well explain who the hell this Eric Draven guy actually is!

     Over the course of the five episodes I learned that he is a guy (a rock star!) whose girlfriend was raped and murdered.  Then he was murdered.  Or maybe he was murdered first.  I don’t know.  But then he came back from the dead, and had a white face, and knew martial arts.  And you know what?  That’s all I ever learned, really.  There is a crow that flies around him.  Is it bringing him messages?  Or just a pet?  Does he have any superhuman abilities, or is he just a martial arts guy?  What, exactly, is he back on Earth to do?  Why was he brought back from the dead?  Why does he choose to help certain people and not others?  How does he know that cop and that little girl?  And who IS that little girl?

     Instead of giving an overview of the series, the DVD just contains five episodes.  In one, a creepy group of scientists tries to use Eric Draven (the Crow (Marc Dacascos)) and his brain so an old man can live forever.  In another, there is a female crow-thing who shows up and looks for an abducted baby.  Then there’s an episode that teaches us that Draven once had a brother who turns out to be Corey Feldman, and finally one that pays lip service to his past as a good ol’ rock-n-roller.  With some kind of mind-messing guy who can make people do his bidding and some guy named Funboy who I think we’re supposed to recognize.  You know, had we watched the first fifteen episodes of the show.

     All I got, from these five episodes, was a painfully Canadian, badly acted show about a martial artist who doesn’t seem to actually know martial arts, a guy with abilities that are never explained…or even shown.  Does he even have abilities?  Other than already being dead?  And Corey Feldman.  Silly, washed-up, over-acting Corey Feldman.  That’s what we have here.  I went on the net to look up all 22 episodes of The Crow so I could figure out how spread out these episodes were.  It turns out they’re actually five episodes, in a row, from the latter half of the run.  If these five ran consecutively, and I still couldn’t follow one to the next, I’m not surprised this show was canceled.  I’m also not terribly convinced that they are the “Best Of”.  Instead I suspect it’s more likely that they are “Five Episodes In A Row Chosen At Random”.

     Either way, I don’t really understand “Best Of” DVDs of TV shows.  Fans likely own the Complete Series already, if they are fans of this show.  Even though they shouldn’t be if they have even half-decent taste.  After all, the Complete Series is only 22 episodes, and can’t be that expensive.  So to whom does the “Best Of” appeal?  Not having seen this show ever before, I could be convinced to pick up this DVD were I to spot it in the bargain bin for $1.49, maybe.  Now that I have seen it, I could not be convinced to do that.

“We’ve got a psychotic serial killer in the family.  Likes to butcher people on Hallowe’en.”

  Halloween H2O (*******7/10)

Year:  1998
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adam Arkin, LL Cool J, Janet Leigh
Eye candy:  Michelle Williams, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe
Director:  Steve Miner
Run time:  86 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     You know how Kevin Bacon appeared in that first Friday the 13th movie, and Johnny Depp was in Nightmare on Elm Street?  How about Jennifer Aniston in the first Leprechaun?  Making each of them the most talented, best known actor ever killed in any of those series?  After fifty or sixty sequels in the three series combined, the most well known people I can think of to die at the hands of Freddy, Jason or the Leprechaun are Kelly Rowland in Freddy vs. Jason and Sticky Fingaz in Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood.  As the series move along, the quality of actors gets lower and lower and lower until they’re down to porn stars and rappers and members of Destiny’s Child.

     The Halloween series is different.  It always has been different, in that it started off with an all-time classic.  I know Nightmare on Elm Street did too.  Both series got progressively worse as time went on, and as the actors got worse and worse, so did the movies.  Eventually, by about the sixth episode, directors were phoning it in worse than the nubile young terrible actors.  Then came Halloween H2O.  Now, I would never suggest that this is an all-time classic.  I wouldn’t even say it’s a great movie.  But it’s certainly the best in the series after the original.  The young cast is impressive, and there are more name actors in this film than in any sequel I can remember.

     What is really remarkable about this is that the greatest actors ever killed by Michael Myers were killed in Halloween H2O, the seventh installment in the series.  It’s a toss-up for me as to who is the better actor – Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Michelle Williams.  Williams has been remarkable in many movies, perhaps most notably Brokeback Mountain.  But I’m going with Gordon-Levitt (perhaps best known for the TV show Third Rock From The Sun), who is, I believe, one of the best young actors working today.  His performance in The Lookout was fantastic, and he was the best thing about Stop-Loss.

     Sidebar – Ironically, I just looked up several of the actors in Halloween H2O, and discovered that Adam Arkin, Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Leigh were all on the Season Two, Volume One DVD of The Love Boat.  Creepy, eh?

     It’s certainly a nice touch to have Janet Leigh appearing in a horror-slasher movie, since she is famous for appearing in the ultimate one, Psycho.  And Jamie Lee Curtis, despite having carved out a respectable career outside the horror-slasher genre, is still primarily remembered as the scream queen from the original Halloween.  Then again, in Halloween H2O, she does very little screaming.  Instead, she is that requisite movie-sequel badass who attacks, with gusto, the bad guy.  No running for her, she is going to face her problems head-on.  And of course, Michael Myers is her biggest problem.

     Her son, Josh Hartnett, is also a problem though.  It’s been 20 years since Michael Myers attacked Jamie Lee, and he thinks that maybe it’s time she stop being frightened by this crazy brother of hers.  Let me be free!  he cries, and so the two of them clash and have one of those mother-son fights that are so very familiar to all of us.  Even those of us who don’t have a crazed serial killer somewhere in our family tree.  But we, the audience, know that her fears are grounded in reality.  Because we saw Michael Myers slaughter three people (one of them Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in the opening scene.  He’s coming, and these folks are blissfully ignorant!

     There are some cool scenes involving a gate surrounding the upscale private school where Curtis is the headmistress and Hartnett is a student and LL Cool J is a particularly slow-witted gate-guard.  However, Michael Myers has the ability to drive a truck.  In fact, he seems to be able to drive a truck from Illinois to South Carolina in about 21 hours.  With powers like that, you would think he could climb a fence, and wouldn’t have to wait until the fence-guard had his back turned to slip in silently.  But, there are fewer silly moments like that one in H2O than in most Halloween sequels.

     After the killing of the three people in the opening scene, we have to wait a full hour for killing #4.  Unlike most brainless slasher sequels, the body count isn’t crazy high here, and there is not a wall-to-wall rampage where characters are introduced simply to be murdered moments later.  Instead, we get to know Curtis, now a mother of a 17-year-old, and her boyfriend (Adam Arkin), the school psychiatrist (how a-propos), and we learn slowly how this woman still, years later, has a very injured psyche.  Crazy serial killer brothers on a rampage will do that to a person.

     Curtis is quite good, reprising her role of 20 years ago and playing it pretty straight.  Hartnett, Williams, Jodi Ly O’Keefe and LL Cool J have clearly been chosen because they are young ingenue eye candy, but they form a much better cast than most similar movies.  And the direction works.  The movie is tight, there is adequate tension in the right moments, and although it feels a little too slick, it works.  And the end of the movie is perfect.  This is how you end a series, definitively.  As a final act in the series, this one really works.  If only it actually was a final act.

  “Trick or treat, moth******er.”

  Halloween Resurrection (**2/10)

Year:  2002
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jamie Lee Curtis, Busta Rhymes
Eye candy:  Tyra Banks, Bianca Kajlich, Daisy McCrackin, Katee Sackhoff
Director:  Rick Rosenthal
Run time:  89 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Oh, why?  Why did they have to do this.  Halloween H2O was no classic, but it was effective and decent and closed out the series nicely.  How could they create another movie after the ending of the last one?  Well, they create a new character.  This Michael Myers, although ostensibly the same Michael Myers as in the last episode, is now Hannibal Lecter clever.  Resurrection completely destroys the credibility that had returned to the series with H2O, because it creates a movie so far outside the realm of Halloween that it’s laughable.  This, really, is a Friday The 13th film.  At best.

     The idea is that Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks run an online reality show where they plan to put cameras throughout the childhood home of Michael Myers, and film some hot young people spending the night there on Hallowe’en.  That’s right.  Busta Rhymes.  And Tyra Banks.  Everything nice I said about the cast of H2O goes out the window and is turned on its ear in Resurrection.  Thankfully, Busta Rhymes lives through the film, leaving Tyra Banks as the definitive champion in the contest of Worst Actor Ever Killed By Michael Myers.  Had ol’ Busta bitten it at the hands of the maniac, it would have been a really, really tough call.

     So in Resurrection, although there are a couple of recognizeable names, we have the worst cast of any Halloween film.  Busta Rhymes makes LL Cool J look like Laurence Olivier.  Mercifully, Jamie Lee Curtis finally dies at the hands of Michael Myers, effectively ending her involvement in this series, and not a moment too soon.  Her death, early on in the movie, is merciful.  One of the most staggeringly painful and unoriginal movie openings ever comes to a merciful end at the same time.

     You see, Curtis is now locked up in an insane asylum, convinced that Michael Myers is still coming to get her.  She is pretending to be more crazy than she is – faking a catatonic state – and spitting out her medication after the nurses leave.  She is preparing to face off against her brother, plotting her escape, and training for the Big Showdown.  No one believes her that he is on his way, or that he is real, until they see him on the security camera entering the building and killing people on his way to her room.  Sound familiar?  Think a moment…yes.  Jamie Lee Curtis has now become Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2.  Only, she loses the battle and dies.  Thankfully.

     Now all we get is a creepy Michael Myers house (where he still, of course, lives), and some inane and idiotic speeches from Busta Rhymes about Dangertainment and the entertainment value of real terror, and how this is how true entertainment will be in the future, and blah blah blah.  The movie seems to be trying to make a statement about human nature and vicarious thrills and so forth, but it is way too stupid to do so.  There are broken steps and creepy high chairs and musical stings and underground lairs where Michael Myers apparently eats rats for sustenance until people come into his house for killing.

     “She really is a very talented actress.”

     No she isn’t.  Oh, and considering the plot of this movie surrounds an internet reality show, you would think that the cameras in the house and attached to the “stars” would be used to create new and interesting angles and scare shots.  But no.  When Michael Myers kills someone, the cameras switch back to regular movie cameras, and the cameras inside the house and on the characters are ignored completely.  So…the premise is completely irrelevant.  Good.

     This really is a Friday the 13th movie – Michael Myers crushes a guy’s head with his hands.  Like Jason.  He lives in a creepy place by himself and only kills the young hotties who come into his area.  Like Jason.  And the movie really, really sucks.  Like Friday movies.  The whole thing ends with an incredibly stupid, self-absorbed and utterly nonsensical dissertation by Busta Rhymes, refuting every other thing he has said during the entire movie.  And so ends Resurrection, a follow-up so bad that it undoes absolutely everything that H2O did right. 

     At least the two movies come on one, bargain-priced DVD, so Resurrection is really like a bonus feature for H2O.  A long, involved, and terrible bonus feature, but there it is.  The single-disc set comes out August 4th from Alliance Films.

     Alliance Films came out with the Blade trilogy on August 26th.  It’s a two-disc edition, with two of the movies on one disc and one on the other.  There are no terrific special features, it’s just a plain, bargain set of the three Blade films in a package that is conveniently the same size as every other DVD in your collection.  And if you don’t have these films already, this is one you should add to your collection.  Here’s why:

Blade (8/10): 

Year:  1998
Genre:  Action, Comic book
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Dorff, Udo Kier, Donal Logue
Eye candy:  N’Bushe Wright, Traci Lords, Sanaa Lathan
Director:  Steve Norrington
Run time:  121 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The original Blade movie was terrific, a real breath of fresh air in the world of comic book movies.  Wesley Snipes was big, muscular, bad-ass and mean.  Kris Kristofferson was amazing as Whistler, Blade’s mentor.  And Stephen Dorff was terrific as the bad guy, a vampire who wanted to trigger the Blood Tide – an event that would, I think, turn everyone in the world into a vampire.  Or something.  The point is, this movie was awesome.  Sword fighting, guns, vampires disintegrating and great special effects, and Snipes as the most ass-kicking, toughest, meanest comic book character of all time.  There was even some good comedy – mostly provided by Donal Logue, who kept getting his arm chopped off.  And for the really cult comic book fans – some appearances by Traci Lords and Udo Kier.  Terrific!

Blade II (10/10): 

Year:  2002
Genre:  Action, Comic book
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, Norman Reedus, Luke Goss, Thomas Kretschmann, Donnie Yen
Eye candy:  Leonor Varela, Sanaa Lathan
Director:  Guillermo Del Toro
Run time:  116 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     By far, the best of the series.  Directed by Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth), this film is as pulse-pounding and visually impressive as any comic book adaptation could aspire to be.  (Well, until 2008 when The Dark Knight came along.)  Snipes is now even more bad-ass, and he is given some awfully cool villains with which to work.  Luke Goss appears as Nomak, a new breed of vampire that preys on both humans AND vampires.  So now the vampires want a truce with Blade, because they are after the same enemy for once.  And Blade hooks up with the Blood Pack, a cheesily-named group of vampire bad-asses who have been training their whole lives to kill Blade, but now must work with him.  Ron Perlman, as the tough-guy leader of the Blood Pack, is amazing.  And even the secondary characters are cool actors – Norman Reedus as a stoner hippie helping Blade and Whistler, and Asian action movie legend Donnie Yen even shows up as a kung-fu fighting member of the Blood Pack.  And the vampire princess, played by Leonor Varela, is one of the hottest women ever in a movie.  Visually stunning, never-ending action, and some seriously bad-ass characters and actors made this movie not just a guilty pleasure, but the best in the trilogy.

Blade: Trinity (3/10): 

Year:  2004
Genre:  Action, Comic book
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ryan Reynolds, Triple H, Patton Oswalt, Dominic Purcell, Callum Keith Rennie, John Michael Higgins, Eric Bogosian
Eye candy:  Jessica Biel, Parker Posey, Natasha Lyonne
Director:  David S. Goyer
Run time:  114 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     One of the biggest letdowns I have ever had at a movie.  Del Toro is gone as director, replaced by David S. Goyer.  Kristofferson is gone early in the film, replaced by Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel.  And I really like Ryan Reynolds – he even has some solid comedic scenes in this film.  But an action star?  Jessica Biel an action star?  I know she really wants to be, and she keeps trying and trying to be one, but she isn’t an action star.  Or a great actress.  She’s hot.  That’s about it.  I mean, stick to movies where you are hot.  Those, you can do.  Blade II had Ron Perlman and Donnie Yen.  Blade Trinity can only suffer by comparison.  But it isn’t just Reynolds and Biel that are the problem.  Snipes is the only genuine action star in the movie, but he is given just about nothing to do.  The script is dreadful, the concept just doesn’t work, and there are some really long, extended scenes that make absolutely no sense.  The other Blade films were genuinely dark, tough, gritty entries that could, on some level, be considered horror films.  This one is an absolute joke.  Not only that, Blade is now the co-star.  In his own film.  Because Biel and Reynolds are the real action stars.  Come on!  This one is total garbage.

      The two-disc Blade trilogy came out August 26th from Alliance Films.  Pick it up!  And ignore that third one.