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.

Years:  1995, 1997, 1999, 2001
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, Jane Leeves
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Frasier was always a great show, and eight of the best episodes are now packaged together on the Frasier Fan Favorites DVD out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I was kind of hoping for a bunch of episodes that reunited Frasier with his old friends from Cheers, like the one where Diane comes to Seattle wither her new play.

     But I guess that since the Cheers Fan Favorites is being released on the same day, there’s not really much point in bringing all those characters back.  Instead, we get what feels like eight randomly chosen episodes –

     Frasier gets sick and Niles fills in for him at the radio station, which makes Frasier paranoid that Niles could take his job.  Frasier gets caught in Daphne’s room a couple of times and they fight.  There’s a radio play, a bunch of episodes where Niles lusts after Daphne, and a huge amount of romantic misunderstandings. 

     Had I not been a Frasier fan for years, I would think that the show was nothing but romantic misunderstandings and people chasing other people.  Actually, I guess it kind of was.

     But it was a great show about chasing women and then misunderstanding them.  The only problem with a DVD featuring eight of the fan favorite episodes is that it leaves me wanting more.  In addition to wanting the Cheers related episodes, I wanted some with Lilith, which I always thought were funniest.  Then again, the Cheers Fan Favorites covers all the Lilith bases as well!

Year:  1999
Genre:  Sci-Fi, TV series
Country:  Canada
Language:  English
Starring:  Michael Easton, Cynithia Preston, Karl Pruner, Judith Krant, Michael Rawlins, Matthew Bennett
Guest stars:  Martin Sheen, Titus Welliver, Jayne Heitmeyer, Art Hindle, Xenia Seeberg, Victoria Snow, Anthony Zerbe, Kristin Booth, Lisa Ryder, Clint Howard, Adrian Hough, Chad Allen, Sara Botsford, Kim Coates, Nick Mancuso, Laura Harris 
Creator:  Art Monterastelli
Run time:  16 hours, 8 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Total Recall 2070 is what I like to think of as a “blender” TV show.  Take everything you know about science fiction, throw it in a blender, and hopefully what comes out makes at least a little bit of sense.  The show is based partly on the movie Total Recall (in that there’s a company called Rekall that gives people vacations in their brains).  It’s also partly based on the movie Blade Runner, the Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (also the basis for Blade Runner), and the Philip K. Dick short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, which inspired the movie Total Recall.  Make sense so far?  OK, bear with me.

     Individual episodes appear to be inspired by things as diverse as I, Robot (the Will Smith movie based on the Isaac Asimov short story), The Andromeda Strain (the James Olsen miniseries based on the Michael Crichton book), and a few episodes of The Outer Limits.  With me to this point?  Alright, let’s continue.

     The star of the series is Michael Easton, who plays a cop in the future who is for some reason named David Hume.  David Hume is ALSO the name of a famous 18th-century Scottish philosopher who founded the school of Empiricism along with John Locke and George Berkeley.  Empiricism is a philosophy that states that all ideas and beliefs a person holds must come directly from their experience and evidence – particularly sensory evidence that one can touch, see, smell or hear.  (Hence the term “empirical evidence”.)  Perhaps Hume’s most famous quote is “reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions”, suggesting that desire predicated human behaviour more readily than did reason.

     Why do I bring this up?  Because it has absolutely nothing – nothing – to do with the TV show.  Now, I suppose there could be a simple explanation for this.  Perhaps the character was named by people who had no idea who David Hume was, and it was just a strange coincidence.  But I doubt it.  Hume is a famous enough figure in Western Philosophy that someone, somewhere along the line would likely have caught it.  I suspect that the reason the main character in Total Recall 2070 is named David Hume is that someone wanted specifically to make a reference to Hume, and then forgot somewhere along the line WHY.

     Like I said, it’s a blender show.  And the name David Hume was thrown into the blender along with Philip K. Dick stories and science fiction movies and dozens of other books, TV shows and films.  Now, here’s the weird thing.  Although it’s a terrible, insane mishmash of a million different styles and themes and ideas, it almost works!  The show lasted only one season, 22 episodes (all of which are on this one DVD box set coming out February 22nd from Alliance Films).  But I think that had it continued its run a little while, it may well have caught on.  There is something strangely compelling about the program despite its lack of focus.

     I think the vast majority of the charm comes from the relationship between the central characters – the inappropriately named David Hume and his cop partner, Ian Favre.  Hume is a tough-guy, old school cop.  And since the show is set in 2070, the “old school” in this case means “the school of 100 years ago”.  Hume is no fan of the androids that are all over the world, working for human beings and sweeping the floors.  He suspects them, you see.  And yet, he is partnered with one such android, Favre (Karl Pruner), who exhibits human emotions and occasionally has his feelings hurt.  The dynamic between the two really works, and is by far the most interesting thing in the show.

     Less interesting is the office politics constantly being played by the superior officers, or the sex between Hume and his wife (the smoking hot Cynthia Preston), which for some reason happens during EVERY show.  We get it – they love each other and have lots of sex.  Amazingly, I got pretty bored with it pretty quick.  Actually, the very first scene of the very first show involves naked boobs.  This bodes well.  I then saw NO naked boobs for the rest of the series.  Weak.  But I would say it’s a testament to this show’s strange watchability that I didn’t get bored watching the whole mess of a “complete series”.

Year:  1999, 2000
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jennie Garth, Tori Spelling, Tiffani Thiessen (barely), Jason Priestley (barely), Ian Ziering, Luke Perry, Brian Austin Green, Lindsay Price, Vanessa Marcil
Eye candy:  Garth, Thiessen, Price, Marcil
Creator:  Darren Star
Producer:  Paul Robinson
Run time:  19 hours 6 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Oh, the pain.  What could be more painful than watching the final episode of the long-running Beverly Hills 90210?  I can think of only one thing.  A wedding video.  I mean, an actual wedding video.  Like, two of your irritating, schmaltzy crappy friends sit you down in their living room to make you watch the video of their wedding.  Here we are setting up the candles…here we are waiting for the official…now we’re walking up the aisle…oh, you have to hear this – Ted wrote his own vows, it was so CUTE!

     That would be awful, wouldn’t it?  Almost as awful as actually attending a wedding, I would say.  And that’s what you get with the very last episode of Beverly Hills 90210.  One big, long, painful wedding.  And it SUCKS.  I’m sure fans of the show were waiting, in great anticipation, to see how the series would end its run.  And maybe they even identified with the characters enough to care about their big, long, painful wedding.  Maybe.  But it’s still a wedding episode.  And nothing more.

     MY biggest problem with it had to do with WHO was getting married.  David and Donna?  The two lamest characters in the entire run of the show?  How…lame.  Imagine if they had ended Seinfeld by marrying off Newman and Teri Hatcher.  Or Friends by marrying off Phoebe and Joey.  Or The A-Team by marrying off Face and B.A. Baracus.  Wouldn’t that be kinda…anti-climactic?

     And so it is with 90210, as the two worst characters get hitched in an interminable, cheesy and painful ceremony for the entire final episode.  You know how sometimes you have friends who get married, and you just know it isn’t going to work and they’re not going to last?  This is kinda like that.  You just know Donna’s gonna end up, later in life, with some tool like Dean McDermott.

     And you just know, later in life, David’s gonna dump Donna for some tool like Megan Fox.

Year:  1999
Genre:  Drama, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper, Mena Suvari, Scott Bakula, Sam Robards, Allison Janney, Peter Gallagher
Director:  Sam Mendes
Run time:  120 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     American Beauty was, of course, one of the great movies of the 90s.  It was funny, it was dark, and it was a terrific skewering of suburban malaise, creating unlikeable characters and then offering them a sort of redemption when they need it most.  It featured some of the great acting performances of the decade (Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Chris Cooper and Mena Suvari, specifically) and earned five major Oscars.  Best Picture, Director (Sam Mendes in his film debut), Screenplay, Actor (Spacey) and Cinematography.

     The key Oscar, when it comes to this new Blu-Ray Sapphire Series release, is the one for cinematography.  The “beauty” in American Beauty doesn’t refer only to the scene where Mena Suvari lies down under a barrage of rose petals.  Although that is certainly beautiful – enough that it makes the cover of the Blu-Ray.  Now I’m thinking about that scene…where was I?  Oh yeah.  Beauty.  The real beauty in this film comes from the cinematography, which makes every single camera shot a work of art.

     There is a chance that this could become annoying, or even nauseatingly obvious, as one of the characters (Wes Bentley with his videocamera) is always searching for beauty in everyday life, in the mundane details of suburbia, and so forth.  And the fact that the camera work in the movie does the same thing could be obnoxious.  But the focus on such details as perfectly-manicured lawns, impeccable clothing, spotless SUVs and the other banal suburban fixtures is what really makes American Beauty a near-perfect film.

     In the intervening years, Mendes has managed to perfect this same formula, and Revolutionary Road is an even better film.  But I’m hard pressed to think of a director who had a better debut than Mendes with American Beauty.  It truly is one of the most incredibly filmed movies of the 90s, and for that reason it gets even better on Blu-Ray.  The Sapphire Series Blu-Ray is released September 21st from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Year:  1999
Genre:  Comedy
Countries:  France, Germany, Italy
Language:  French
Starring:  Christian Clavier, Gerard Depardieu, Laetitia Casta, Roberto Benigni
Director:  Claude Zidi
Run time:  109 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     When I was a kid, I loved Asterix and Obelix. I would go to the library and borrow every single one of those giant, hardcover, oversized comic books. In fact, most of the reason I still have the ability to speak and understand French today is thanks to Asterix et Obelix, Gaston La Gaffe, Lucky Luke, and a host of other French-language comic books aimed directly at very young children. In 1999, this comic book, beloved in France, was turned into a massive live action movie starring some of the biggest names in French films, including Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar comes to DVD in in a box set with Jeux Olympiques and Mission Cleopatre from Alliance Films. It has no English subtitles, and no English dubbing, so unless you speak French, steer clear.

     For those of you (and I’m sure there are a few) who are unfamiliar with the story of Asterix and Obelix, they are Gauls, who live in a little village in the heart of the Roman Empire. The Romans have managed to conquer the rest of the known world, but for some reason this little village continues to resist their rule. It’s all thanks to the “magic potion” brewed by the village’s resident druid, Panoramix. This potion gives anyone who drinks it superhuman strength, and the village has been using it to fend off the Romans for years. Asterix is the leader of the Gaul warriors, a clever and cunning fellow, and Obelix is his big fat best friend. Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar remains true to the comics. Very true.

     In fact, much too true. That’s the biggest problem with this film. Obelix has a crush on the girl, so he moons over her – just like in the comic book. Obelix eats a lot – just like in the comic book. He keeps trying to drink the magic potion, even though he doesn’t need it – just like in the comic book. All of this made for some very entertaining comics, but not so much entertaining film. This is a kids’ movie though, and the kids will like it when the romans get punched out of their armour. The best thing here is that the French is very simple, and the films are also so wild and cartoonish that you really don’t need the dialogue to explain everything. My kids enjoyed both Asterix and Obelix movies that came out today, even though their command of the language is suspect at best. The film is not great. It’s only sort-of good. But it’s simple, the kids will like it, it will help them with their French, and Laetitia Casta is hot. So it’s worth your while in some way.

Year:  2002
Genre:  Comedy
Countries:  France, Germany
Language:  French
Starring:  Christian Clavier, Gerard Depardieu, Monica Bellucci, Jamel Debbouze
Director:  Alain Chabat
Run time:  105 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     These Asterix et Obelix movies are impressive films. A massive cast, some of the most well-known actors in the world, and a seemingly limitless budget for what are, in many ways, modest movies. Asterix et Obelix: Mission Cleopatre is no exception. In fact, this movie is the most expensive movie ever made in France. Gerard Depardieu and Christian Clavier return as the titular heroes, and Monica Bellucci shows up as the titular heroine. I think I can safely make this proclamation right now. Never, in the history of children’s movies, has there been a sexier, hotter, more ridiculously smoldering character. France is a little different than North America, you see.

     North America would never have made this movie. In France, however, they make movies like this one. Monica Bellucci, possibly the most magnificent, gorgeous specimen of womanhood on movie screens the world over, is Cleopatra. She wears different, opulent, clothes in every scene. Sometimes those clothes are see-through. Other times, they manage to reveal everything but nipple. And still other times, there are gratuitous (but welcome) shots of the top of her ass crack. How often do you get to see something so glorious in a kids’ movie? In my memory, never. In fact, not only is Monica Bellucci the hottest women ever to appear in a kids’ movie, she is also the hottest Cleopatra of all time. Elizabeth Taylor was awfully close in 1963, but in 1963 she wasn’t wearing anything like this.

     Once again, with this film, there are no English subtitles or English dubbing, which means that unless you speak French there will be a significant language barrier. However, the actions and plot are so cartoonish that you may be able to figure it out anyway. At the end, one question was answered for me. I wondered why, in the first movie, Caesar was played by Gottfried John, and in this film he’s played by the director, Alain Chabat. Well, he gets to seriously make out with Monica Bellucci. I think I may have cast myself as Caesar were I the director in this case as well. It turns out that this is the plum role in the film. Just like Asterix et Obelix Contre Cesar, the kids will like this movie, it will help them with their French, and there is eye candy for the dads.

Year:  2008
Genre:  Comedy
Countries:  France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany
Language:  French
Starring:  Gerard Depardieu, Clovis Cornillac, Benoit Poelvoorde, Alain Delon, Zinedine Zidane
Directors:  Thomas Langmann, Frederic Forestier
Run time:  117 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     This DVD is a little different than the earlier Asterix DVDs, in that it is available with English subtitles and, should you want it, English dubbing. The first two Asterix et Obelix DVDs were in French only, but this one gets the English additions for the Canadian market. Also new is the guy playing Asterix himself. Gone is Christian Clavier, who played the character in the first two films, replaced by Clovis Cornillac. Perhaps they already had the dressing room for Asterix outfitted with monogrammed towels, and they needed to find someone with the same initials to save some money. Because frankly, Cornillac is not the Asterix I have come to expect. Clavier was expressive, with a twitchy moustache and wide-eyed excitement. Cornillac is more of a preener, striking poses and looking bemused at his would-be opponents, like a French version of Cary Elwes. Not the same. Not cool.

     Gerard Depardieu, however, returns in the role of Obelix, the beachball-shaped strongman who usually plays second-fiddle to Asterix. Although in this film, Asterix is given very little to actually do, and Obelix gets more face time. The real star of the film, however, is Stephane Rousseau as Alafolix, a Gaul who is in love with Princess Irina. She is portrayed, as is often the case in these movies, by a supermodel. This time the supermodel is the mouthwatering Vanessa Hessler, who has little to do except look extremely hot. And she does that very well. Once again, there is a new actor playing the druid Panoramix – this time it is Jean-Pierre Cassel, in his final film role. For the third time there is a new Julius Caesar, this time played by Alain Delon.

     The basic plot of the film is that Princess Irina has decided she will marry the Winner Of The Olympics. How one guy can win the Olympics, and by extension the hand of Vanessa Hessler, is never clearly explained. Asterix and Obelix, with their super-strength and magic potion, are clearly winning all the events, which would lead me to believe that were the princess to honour her commitment, she would have to enter into a three-way relationship with the small mustachioed guy in the Viking helmet and the big fat hungry guy with Pippi Longstocking braids. I think I saw that in an adult film once, but how it would work here is unclear. It seems that everyone involved here has accepted the fact that if the Gauls win, Alafolix by extension wins, and he gets to marry the hot chick. However, if the Romans win, she will be forced to marry the unpleasant, devious and idiotic Brutus, son of Julius Caesar.

     There are, as usual, some strange subplots. One involves Brutus constantly trying to knock off his old man, Caesar, which is a series of plots that meet with a Wile-E-Coyote level success rate. Another involves the Romans’ star athlete, a guy named (I think) Gluteus Maximus. Near the beginning of the movie, there is a rather unsettling scene where this big, muscular, athletic guy is sprinting through the forest and runs past Asterix and Obelix. Curious, the Gauls chase after him to find out why he is running so fast. They never really find out why, but still end up crushing him with a tree and then they beat the hell out of him. He wasn’t hurting anyone – this poor guy’s just out training. For the Olympics! They could have left him alone, you would think. I mean, sure, he bumped into Obelix a little bit as he sprinted by, but isn’t this reaction a little extreme? This makes Asterix and Obelix look like those muscle-guys in the bar who are looking for a fight every time someone jostles their elbow. Not cool, guys.

     Also a little unsettling is the use of the magic strength potion to win the Olympics. After all, what kind of message does this send to kids? This movie is clearly created for children, then suggests that steroids are not such a bad idea? They call attention to this, administering a breathalyser test to the athletes and disqualifying Asterix and Obelix. But they are the heroes of the piece, and they laugh at the idea that the Romans have to cheat by banning them. But – they are using the potion! They are the cheaters! They should be banned! The Olympics appear to be held in Greece, which is historically accurate. Greece appears to be a part of the Roman Empire. Which is not historically accurate. They are clearly making a reference to the rock band Rolling Stones, but they say “Les Pierres Qui Roulent”. A lot of this doesn’t make sense.

     Like the other two films in this series, Asterix at the Olympic Games features numerous references to other movies. Star Wars, Ben-Hur, and so forth. Most of these are distracting and pointless, but one stands out. There is a moment where Gerard Depardieu, as Obelix, whispers love poems to the love-struck Alafolix as he stands under Princess Irina’s window. It’s an obvious reference to Cyrano De Bergerac, a movie in which Depardieu plays the icon of unrequited love who whispers love poems from the bushes. Then he does the same for his dog Idefix, who falls in love with the princess’ dog. And that gets pretty stupid.

     I like the way these movies are shot. I like the fact that they are colourful, the costumes are terrific, and yet you never forget you are watching a cartoon brought to live-action on the screen. But I think the biggest problem with the movies is the fact that (for France) they are big-budget. And when a film has a budget this big, film makers seem to think that the only way to truly justify that is to throw in as much stuff as they can, using up their resources and money. Which leads to subplots about dogs in love, inventions to kill Caesar, and a half-hour of unnecessary crap between the announcement of the climactic chariot race and the beginning of that race itself. Asterix At The Olympic Games is almost two hours long, but it should be about 80 minutes. That’s all the real content there is. We get it. Obelix is strong, Princess Irina is hot, the Roman guy is evil and stupid, now get on with the movie.

     The best thing about the movie (other than the hotness of Vanessa Hessler) is actually the English dubbing and the English subtitles. How the English could be so strange and badly done here, I have no idea. But it’s hilarious! The hero of the story, Alafolix, gets his name changed to “Lovesix”. The king of Greece is named Samagas. In the English dubbing, this translates to something that sounds like “Boogerpus”. And the English subtitles to the scene call him “Obnoxious”. As though that is his name. Wouldn’t the single easiest thing to translate in a movie be the names of the characters? Even changing their names to things like “Jim”, or “Ted” would make SOME sense, if you wanted English audiences to see names they recognized. But why change a Latin name to something more incomprehensible? It’s pretty strange. And pretty funny.

     There are some things that make Asterix At The Olympic Games worthwhile. The always-amusing Depardieu, the colourful, vibrant filming and set design, the gorgeous Vanessa Hessler. And of course the hilarious subtitles and some fun cartoon violence. But there are an equal number of things that make this film sag. The useless subplots, the overly long interludes between the action, and the questionable messages for children – steroid use, bar-brawl bullying, and attempted patricide. I’ll leave it up to you and split the difference in my review. With one extra star for the fact that it’s a great way to help your kids learn French.

Year:  1999
Genre:  Sci-Fi, TV series
Country:  Canada, United States
Language:  English
Guest stars:  Joe Pantoliano, Cynthia Nixon, Ralph Macchio, Roddy Piper, David Kaye, Malcolm McDowell (voice), Bruce Harwood, Tabitha St. Germain, Cary Elwes, Saul Rubinek, Marcia Cross,  Michael Ironside, Kevin Conway, Kevin Nealon, Daphne Zuniga, Daniel Baldwin, Nathan Fillion, Amanda Plummer (in a clip from a previous season)
Eye candy:  Nixon, Leslie Hope, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Susannah Hoffman, Polly Shannon, St. Germain, Cross, Jenny Levine, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Zuniga, Jessica Steen, Angeline Ball, Megan Gallagher
Run time:  16 hours, 45 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The Outer Limits is a great TV series to have lying around your house.  I now have the first five seasons, and I often throw in a disc when there’s nothing on television and I have no movies to watch.  A rare occurence, but it’s nice to know that regardless of what season and what disc I choose, I will be entertained and get at least two good sci-fi episodes out of four.  That being said, the DVD sets are getting weaker as they go on.  Not because the episodes are getting worse – they are as good as ever.  But there is much less nudity on the Season Five DVD set (out August 3rd from Alliance Films) than there was in Season One.  It was pretty exciting to flip through the episodes of season one to see if, say, Alyssa Milano got naked (she did).  Now, no one gets naked.

     The vast number of guest stars on this show makes it a virtual certainty that someone in every episode is recognizeable.  Whether that person is a former star (Ralph Macchio, the Karate Kid, for example) or a future star (Marcia Cross, Desperate Housewives, or Cynthia Nixon Sex And The City), they’re in there.  Much like The X-Files, which got weaker and weaker the more they focused on aliens, so too did The Outer Limits.  The episodes that take place in space are pretty lame.  But the ones that take place on Earth, about a scientist serving a life sentence in prison, or a doctor trying to revive brain-dead patients, or a murderer involved in full-body transplants, they are fantastic.

     I can’t sit down and watch all 16 hours of this show at one time.  It’s overwhelming, and there are enough bad space-themed episodes to make it irritating.  But for the most part, the show remains excellent despite the lack of nudity.  That’s really the only bone I have to pick with The Outer Limits Season Five.  There are episodes that cry out for nudity, but there is none.  One episode in particular, where a self-aware spaceship voiced by Malcolm McDowell, gets the human operator of his ship to have sex, over and over, with the smoking hot human operator of another self-aware ship, so they can have a kid to keep the spaceships alive.  The gorgeous operator of the other ship is Polly Shannon, and the episode features constant sex.  But no nudity at all.  How chicken.  Other than that though, The Outer Limits is great.

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.

“You love Terrence and Philip!”
“Yeah, but the animation’s all crappy.”

Year:  1999
Genre:  Comedy, Musical, Cartoon
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman, Eric Idle, Dave Foley, Isaac Hayes, Jesse Howell, Anthony Cross-Thomas, Francesca Clifford, Bruce Howell, Deborah Adair, Jennifer Howell, Brent Spiner, George Clooney, Minnie Driver, Nick Rhodes, Stewart Copeland, Stanley G. Sawicki, Mike Judge
Director:  Trey Parker
Run time:  88 minutes
Blu-Ray distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
Related reviews:  Imaginationland, South Park Season 12, The Cult of Cartman: Revelations, South Park Season 11

     There is a website I go to, every now and then, for a good laugh.  It lists all the swear words, the moments of nudity, and the violent images that could afflict your children when they watch a movie.   Normally, this website goes through each instance, pointing out all the nudity, and describing in vivid detail the violence, and quoting (using euphemisms) the swearing verbatim.  I think the guys who created South Park would enjoy this website also.  On an ironic level, it’s pretty hilarious.  When a movie has 31 specific uses of the “f-word”, is that too much?  Are parents cutting their kids off at 30?  How many really is too many?

     It also amuses me to think that this watchdog website, purporting to protect kids from profanity and sexuality, employs people who watch movies beginning to end, so they can recount in vivid detail all the instances of f-words and nipples for us to peruse.  Check out this quality entry for Pulp Fiction:  “There’s hardly any nudity, but there are several very explicit discussions of sex, and, most importantly, a man is shown being raped by another man. A couple kiss while in bed, and oral sex is referred to and implied. A man is shown nude from the side (we see his derriere from the side and a hint of pubic hair).”

     With South Park, they didn’t even bother.  Here is the entry for South Park:

   “More than 100+ F-words, many scatological and anatomical references, many mild obscenities and many racial slurs.”

     I am assuming that the people running this website watched about nine minutes of the film, then ran out of the room in tears, sobbing and quivering and curling up in a ball in the corner and washing out their ears for Jesus.

     I would like to state, off the top, that the rating I gave the South Park movie is not the rating I would give the movie itself.  But rather, it is a rating for the Blu-Ray edition of the movie, which is patently unnecessary and, in the end, almost entirely pointless.  There are some trailers as special features.  The same trailers I have on my existing DVD version.  There is a commentary track from Matt Stone and Trey Parker, which could have fit on my original DVD, had they thought of it at the time.  And there is a tiny little video of the “What Would Brian Boitano Do” song that plays only in the very top corner of my television.

     Other than that, this is the exact same DVD as I already own.  South Park, believe it or not, looks no better in HD than it does in regular D.  Imagine that!  This cheaply-animated cartoon looks exactly the same on Blu-Ray as it does on DVD.  So…that’s not a selling point.  The Trey Parker-Matt Stone commentary track is not terribly useful either.  There are some interesting anecdotes (for example, James Hetfield didn’t want his name or that of Metallica on the film, even though they contributed the song that plays when Kenny goes to hell, because Metallica fans would think they had sold out).

     There are also a couple of amusing if creepy stories about how they came up with the V-chip idea, and how they fought with Paramount over the trailer for the movie, and a very offensive story about how they tried to use Columbine to their advantage.  Overall though, most of the track involves the two South Park creators saying hey, the movie was made ten years ago, and we don’t remember that much.  So…why is this commentary track on the Blu-Ray?  Just so they can have something different that isn’t already on the DVD, I guess.  The best thing about the Blu-Ray that I don’t have on my DVD is the Spanish language track – it’s very funny to listen to Mr. Mackie’s “It’s Easy M’Kay” song in Spanish.

     So the Blu-Ray, out October 13th from Paramount Home Entertainment, is utterly unnecessary.  But if you don’t already own South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, you must pick it up.  Because if I was just rating the movie itself here, it would get ten stars, no question about it, hands down.  This movie is so much more than just little cartoon kids swearing.  Although little cartoon kids swearing IS hilarious.  It’s also the best musical I have ever seen.  And one of the funniest movies of all time.  And it’s clever and it’s smart and it’s bonkers.  And it’s the most biting indictment of censorship double standards I have ever seen. 

     “Remember what the MPAA says – horrific, deplorable violence is OK, as long as no one says any naughty words.”

     The songs are fabulous.  The song which kicks off the movie, where Stan is walking through South Park and describing his town, is done in the style of many cartoons, in that it’s pastoral and sounds very friendly and cheerful.  But the lyrics are hilariously inappropriate for the type of song.  From there, the Terrence And Philip song “Uncle F*****” is brilliant in it’s filthiness, the song Satan sings is operatic and funny, and “Blame Canada” actually got an Oscar nomination that year (1999).  The best song in the film, however, is a far simpler tune, and a retread from the “Mr. Hankie” episode of the show, called “Kyle’s Mom’s A Bitch”.  It isn’t just the song, it’s the setup and the payoff to it that make it the best one in the film.

     When I first saw South Park in the theatres in 1999, I was laughing so hard (particularly at Cartman’s megaphone scene and the V-chip scenes) that I missed half the movie.  In fact, at one point I believe I fell out of my seat, onto the floor, I was laughing so hard.  I probably did.  I was certainly sticky when I got home.  When the film came out on DVD, I picked it up the day it was released.  And I suggest that you do the same.  No DVD collection is complete without South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut.  But your Blu-Ray collection doesn’t need this addition, and this film doesn’t need this upgrade.  After all, I love South Park, but the animation’s all crappy.

“Words create lies.  Pain can be trusted.”

Year:  1999
Genre:  Horror
Country:  Japan
Language:  Japanese
Starring:  Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina, Miyuki Matsuda, Renji Ishibashi
Director:  Takashi Miike
Run time:   115 minutes

     There is a new genre of movies in the world today, a genre referred to by many people as “torture-porn”. It doesn’t refer to adult films, it’s a sort of sub-genre of horror movies, the most famous of which is likely Eli Roth’s Hostel. These are movies where the horror comes from the unending and disgusting torture of innocent or not-so-innocent victims at the hands of some lunatic. Saw, The Devil’s Rejects, Wolf Creek, Turistas, The Passion of the Christ, the genre has become a big money maker for film makers.

     You don’t need a big budget, and you just have to come up with a reason, like the need to harvest organs without the budget for anaesthesia. That’s good enough. There have been movies in this vein for a long time. Old-school Italian cannibal movies and so forth. But the guy I credit, or maybe blame, for making these movies mainstream is a Japanese director named Takashi Miike, who kick-started the genre with his 1999 film Audition. This is still the best torture-porn movie out there, thanks to a horrific final half-hour that is more unsettling than anything you’re likely to see from Eli Roth or Rob Zombie. What makes Audition work is that it leads up to the torture scene very slowly, and there are some genuinely good scares in the meantime, especially a scene with a canvas bag and a phone.

     Although I really like Audition, it definitely created a scene I could do without. It’s like Ian Mackaye. I like Minor Threat, but without them the world would be a better place, because there would be no emo.