New Releases for Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011

Posted Sep 24, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Sep 24, 2011 at 11:56 AM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

The Exterminator
Genre: Action/Vigilante exploitation
Directed by: James Glickenhaus
Run time: 102 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: There are so many great moments in this worthy 1980 contender for the exploitation cinema Hall of Fame that it’s nearly impossible to catalog them all.  First off, there’s the opening Vietnam-set firefight where American soldiers get down and dirty with the vicious Viet Cong, trading war atrocities and heavy firepower amid one of the cheesiest (ie, totally awesome!) helicopter rescues ever.

Next up, the action shifts to NYC where the streets are being overrun with thugs and criminals. This isn’t the whitewashed and sterilized bright lights, big city of today’s New York; this is the gritty, dangerous, dirty streets from “Taxi Driver” and “Maniac.” Into this wasteland comes the Exterminator (Robert Ginty, a man of few words and fewer facial expressions), who is called to duty after his friend and fellow soldier gets brutally attacked. The Exterminator has other things to worry about, though – namely, the late, great Christopher George! That’s right, the only man other than William Shatner who could literally overact and chew scenery in a scene with zero dialogue and no action whatsoever to speak of, the guy who inexplicably showed up in so many God-awful Italian splatter films like “Pieces” and “City of the Living Dead” and bad B-movies like “Grizzly” and “Enter the Ninja.”

To be fair, “The Exterminator” isn’t a great film. It has definite flaws based on its budget, but it’s an above-average vigilante/revenge flick and as bloody and violent, if not more so, than similar genre hits “Ms. 45,”  “Thriller – A Cruel Picture” or even the original “Death Wish.”

Writer/director James Glickenhaus (who made a slew of drive-in worthy films starting with “The” including The Astrologer, The Soldier and The Protector) deserves credit for delivering a great popcorn flick.

And Synapse Films should be commended for dusting off this long-unavailable title and giving fans a proper high-definition release.

Without films like “The Exterminator,” there would be no influence, no point of reference for today’s “Hobo with a Shotgun” or “Robert Rodriguez’s Machete.” There should be a place reserved in every movie geek’s heart for these films because they were the precursor to the digital age, examples of creativity trumping budget at a time when better special effects and computer enhancement didn’t exist.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – No.
Nudity – No.
Gore – No.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Thugs on the streets of NYC.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Audio commentary, theatrical trailer, television spots, DVD copy.
On the Web – http://synapse-films.com/

The Silent House (MPI, 89 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Let’s forget for a minute that “The Silent House” is a gimmick film, that it promises viewers a horror movie shot in one continuous take with no cuts, zero editing. As a horror movie about a father and daughter being asked to clean a spooky house and suddenly discovering that they may not be alone in the house, “Silent” has some downright chilling moments. It also has some incredibly long stretches where not very much happens and, visually, the film seems to stall. Both the chilling moments and the boring bits can be attributed back to the gimmick, to the single camera frame that follows the characters relentlessly. Thankfully, this is not a “found footage” film, meaning that the camera is an organic entity, not tied to one character’s hand. Or is it? Director Gustavo Hernández employs several tricks and twists along the way as he slowly unspools his dark study of some very bad events that appear to have happened in this Spanish villa. Among those tricks is a seeming suggestion that the camera is, at times, the point of view for a particular character. Hernández does better when he locks the viewer in a pitch-black room with the daughter and some…thing else, a spectral spirit that the daughter tries mightily to capture on film using an old Polaroid camera. The images captured in the blindingly brief flash offer some of the better “jump” moments in the film. By the third act, however, the plot twists piled on top of one another almost threaten to crash down and undermine the entire movie. Suffice to say, there’s both a ghost and a killer inside the two-story home. Two of the three main characters die. The third may or may not have killed the others. The unresolved questions continue to mount during two codas – the first, a montage of Polaroid pictures that attempt to spell out what kind of bad things previously took place within the home’s walls, and then, later, a final twist epilogue that once again casts doubt over everything you’ve just watched. “The Silent House” is a case study in filmmaking Do’s and Don’ts. First, there was no need to shoot the movie in one continuous take, unless Hernández simply wanted to see if he could do it. Second, the most simple path is often the best one to choose, and unfortunately, while interesting for most of its run time, the big reveals at the end don’t make up for the lagging stretches where little exciting happens.

Supernatural: The Complete Sixth Season (Warner Bros., 924 minutes, Unrated, DVD): “Supernatural,” much like its death-defying Winchester brothers, was supposed to be gone, a ghost, a memory, an excellent addition to the great genre TV hall of fame. But a strong, dramatic fifth season, coupled with consistently high ratings, propelled network executives to bring the show back. It was supposed to end with the Season 5 finale. It didn’t. That can often be a bad omen for a show that has seemingly told its story in the way it wanted to. Thankfully, but not surprisingly, the sixth season was equally strong, showcasing several classic episodes that will stand as fan favorites whenever the show does finally close the curtain and pack its bags. However, as a fan from the first episode on, I think it’s fair to say that the sixth season finale didn’t wow me in the same way as year’s past. I had given up hoping/wanting to see an ultimate showdown between Sam and Dean as the respective vessels for Heaven and Hell (Note: I still think that’s the end game for the show, to blast out with a double death that there’s no coming back from, allowing the Winchester’s to go with the knowledge that they brought peace to all the worlds at play). And I was intrigued by the long-gestating story arc involving Castiel’s war in Heaven. But when they finally got around to fleshing out the ramifications for and from the war, I found myself less invested. Castiel is now God. OK, what does that mean? Is he now the big bad for Season 7? It certainly sounds that way from Castiel’s ominous speech at the end of the last episode. Originally, fans had been led to believe that Season 6 was going to focus more on monsters and the origin of monsters, and it did, to a degree. But the monsters were only a platform to enable the angels to locate Purgatory in order to harness the power of all the souls contained there. I’m really hoping the seventh (please be final) season will return to one of the most intriguing of all storylines, which arrived late last season, and that was the introduction of H. P. Lovecraft and his summoning circle, which apparently brought a demon from Purgatory across the dimensional plain into our reality. As a huge Lovecraft geek, I think this would be a rich vein to mine. And just so no one confuses my sentiment that the forthcoming season be the last, it is only because I don’t want “Supernatural” to become another “The X-Files” and drag on well past its expiration date, sullying its legacy and impact on the genre in the process.

Killer Double Feature: Bad Dreams and Visiting Hours (Shout! Factory, 183 minutes, R, DVD): Kudos to Shout! Factory for packaging together two oft-overlooked, but nonetheless awesome horror flicks from the 1980s – 1982’s “Visiting Hours,” a stalk and slash thriller featuring both Michael Ironside and William Shatner (!), and 1988’s “Bad Dreams,” a surprisingly well-made and gory supernatural who-done-it set inside a mental ward of a hospital and focusing on a crazy suicide cult called Unity Fields. If memory serves me right, “Bad Dreams” got a bad rap for being a “Nightmare on Elm Street” knock-off. There are comparisons, sure. Both films feature an antagonist who is severely burned, both deal with dreams and both blur the line between dreams and reality. But “Bad Dreams” is not a rip-off by any stretch. It’s actually a solid, enjoyable slice of 80s horror featuring a strong turn from genre vet Richard Lynch as crazy cult leader Harris and a standout performance by Dean “Chainsaw” Cameron as Ralph, one of the committed patients who has issues with anger. The imagery by director Andrew Fleming, who also helmed “The Craft” and “Hamlet 2,” is creepy and well-designed. The flashback sequences to the cult’s mass suicide in the 1970s are chillingly effective. And the big twist at the end, when the real killer is exposed as well as his motivation for causing so much death, is a hoot. It plays like an episode of “Scooby Doo” – I would have gotten away with it too, if not for you nosy kids and that damn dog! – except there’s considerably more bloodshed involved. This is a double feature worth checking out.

Also Available:

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop – If he did, Jay Leno would win, and that’s not acceptable. Down with the Chin.

The 10th Victim – More cult classic goodness from Blue Underground. This 1965 thriller features Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress starring in a futuristic competition where ordinary citizens sign up for a contest called The Big Hunt where they win $1 million if they successfully kill enough other contestants.

Incendies – French thriller that spins off the reading of a will into a time-fragmented mystery where the surviving relatives must search for a family member they believed to be dead and one they never knew existed.

Grey’s Anatomy: The Complete Seventh Season – Remember when they had cool stories on “Grey’s Anatomy” like Christina Ricci keeping a bomb from exploding by keeping her hand inside some guy’s chest? Yeah, that was a while ago. Like the first or second season.

Ghost Hunters Season Six, Volume One – SyFy’s cottage industry keeps on cranking. Either these guys aren’t very good at their job, or the ghosts just don’t want to be found. Otherwise, by now, you’d think someone would have captured something truly irrefutable on film.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Sixth Season – Television’s crudest comedy returns with its sixth full season of in your face, politically incorrect poor taste. If you drink at Paddy’s, you wouldn’t want it any other way.

Just Peck – It’s a coming of age tale centered around a science fair. Um…

Marvel Knights: Thor and Loki, Blood Brothers – Hot on the heels of “Thor,” the Marvel Knights animation team whips out this brooding, dark take on the comic miniseries, “Loki.”;

Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown – The first “Never Back Down” had Cam Gigandet playing such a douche, I still don’t like him in any other role. Part two is directed by and stars Michael Jai White who has been on a biscuit of late with the resurrected Mortal Kombat, The Dark Knight and Tactical Force.

Rescue Me: The Sixth and Final Season – Props to this amazing show for never bending to convention, for always exploring new avenues, even if they didn’t yield huge ratings or awards, and for never being afraid to be original and fearless and flawed.

Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season – Amanda Tapping continues to thrive post-“Stargate: SG1” with the third season, expanded to 20 episodes, of a show she helped conceive, “Sanctuary.” Taking a different slant on the typical sci-fi approach, Tapping and Co. are tasked with locating and protecting monsters, not killing them.

Son of Morning – An apocalyptic comedy (?) about the death of the sun and the destruction of the world starring Danny “I’m too old for this stuff” Glover, Heather “Remember me” Graham and Jamie-Lynn “I wish the Sopranos was still on” Sigler.

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena – This excellent six-ep prequel to the equally great “Spartacus: Blood and Sand” featured a different gladiator, Gannicus (Dustin Clare), fighting for the House of Batiatus, which means of course, appearances by John Hannah and sexy as hell Lucy Lawless. I love the stylized, over-the-top, bloodier than hell approach that Starz is milking for all its worth. The only cloud over this release is the news of the death of Andy Whitfield, who played Spartacus until he was forced to quit acting due to cancer.

Blue Bloods: The Complete First Season – The ‘Stache returns to network TV. Go get ‘em, Magnum.

Brand New Day – Oh Glee, what have you spawned? An Aussie musical starring Geoffrey Rush. At least he’s not dressed like a pirate.

Haunting at the Beacon – Spooky ghost story about a family who loses a child then begins seeing apparitions of a child in their new home.

Trainspotting – I dare you to watch the toilet scene without gagging. No matter how many times you watch it. You…still…gag. Especially now, in high definition.

Hesher – I can’t tell if Hesher is supposed to be a slacker/squatter version of Tyler Durden, but despite Joseph Gordon Levitt’s best effort, I couldn’t find the groove.

The Tempest – Julie Taymor returns to Shakespeare because Spider-Man was proving a little too brutal.

Meek’s Cutoff – Michelle Williams owns this movie. No, really, I’m sure she owns a copy because she stars in it, and that’s probably part of her contract (Subsection B4.01: Actors shall receive at least one (1) free copy of DVD or Blu-Ray upon mass market release.) But for real, she just commands the screen in this tale of frontier life and how difficult it proved for women. Must see performance.

Rebirth – A difficult but rewarding documentary about the long, slow healing that has taken place post-9/11.

Boggy Creek – If you remember the micro-budget film from 1972 called “The Legend of Boggy Creek,” then it’s a pretty sure sign that you will want to at least try out this new version. It’s not about the same swamp, this one is in Texas, not Arkansas,but there’s still a guy in a big hairy suit running around. Only this time, there’s too much focus on the characters, a young woman whose father has been killed, her best friend and three tag-alongs who exist simply to die, than the beast. The local hick deputies are too cartoonish in their efforts to keep the beast’s existence a secret. And, honestly, there’s just too much dead air. I’d rather see a full-throated, all-out “Boggy Creek” creature rampage than a story of personal healing punctuated by scenes of a guy in a furry suit grunting his way through the woods.

Born of Earth – Based on cover art alone, this nasty little creature feature is worth a watch. Then you watch it, and realize you were wrong.

Camelot: The Complete Series – Sadly, Starz gave up on its reimagining of King Arthur and Merlin and their ilk after just one season. That’s a shame because that means no more Eva Green as Morgan, the sexiest, evilest witch of all.

Glee: The Complete Second Season – Get the gleek out! No really. It’s time to get the gleek out of “Glee” and return the show to its early roots, which focused more on interpersonal drama and less on sudden-breakout-into-song musical numbers. Also, because I’m sure the powers that be are reading and taking notes, it’s a little early to fall back on themed episodes. Wait for Season Four to do that.

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New Releases for Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011

Posted Sep 24, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Sep 24, 2011 at 11:45 AM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

A Horrible Way to Die
Genre: Horror
Directed by: Adam Wingard
Run time: 87 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: That there is a fascination with murderers, killers and their evil ilk is nothing new. But rarely has there been a killer captivating enough to garner a rock star-like following.

The Menendez Brothers had their share of faithful admirers, mostly women wishing to marry them. Ted Bundy was another, so smooth and suave, yet so cold and calculating.

“A Horrible Way to Die” is a movie about the public’s fascination with serial killers. But it’s also a near-flawless case study in evil incarnate that is as mesmerizing to watch as it is chilling to contemplate. Though a work of fiction, the events depicted in director Adam Wingard’s film hardly seem farfetched, particularly to anyone who reads the news with any regularity.  The characters created by writer Simon Barrett are so believable, so familiar, that the shocking twists hit home with a whallop usually not felt in a low-budget slasher.

Huge credit goes to the three leads, particularly A.J. Bowen as Garrick Turrell, the serial slayer who escapes from prison and sets out on a murder spree as he kills his way back to where his ex Sarah now lives. Bowen is really establishing himself as one of the best in the genre, and has made a living lately off playing incredibly creepy, yet unnervingly sympathetic and even likeable psychos, in fan favorites like “The Signal” and “The House of the Devil.” He’s a magnetic actor with an easy style who should become a household name for horror geeks, and his effortless, chilling performance leaves no doubt why a succession of beautiful women would fall for his fatal charms.

Amy Seimetz plays Sarah, and she is so convincingly fragile as the former girlfriend of mass murderer Garrick Turrell. Sarah is grappling with the realization that she had been duped for so long by his smooth excuses and believable lies, and aided substantially by a chemical dependency on alcohol. Sarah is now in rehab and trying to rebuild her life, staying as far off the grid as possible, cloaking herself in anonymity and rarely divulging much about her past.

In her weekly group, Sarah meets Kevin, another recovering alcoholic, who asks her out on a date. Kevin, as played by Joe Swanberg, is a goofy, good-looking, awkward guy who wants to care for Sarah, who doesn’t push her too hard or too fast, seeing how vulnerable she appears. Swanberg’s performance is possibly the best of the film, if only because he is asked to pull off a few remarkable moments late in the movie, which I won’t spoil here, and he nails it.

Wingard is a director on the up. He’s a name to watch out for, having already delivered two impressive independent features, “Home Sick” and “Pop Skull.” And Barrett is simply one of the best writers working in the genre right now. If you haven’t seen his earlier efforts, “Dead Birds,” a genuinely scary Civil War-era ghost story, or “Red Sands,” an ambitious paranormal tale set within the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, you must go out and find those films and check them out.

The duo’s next project, aptly titled “You’re Next,” is already garnering rave reviews on the festival circuit as a meta-slasher film that just might reinvent the genre, much like “Scream” did back in the mid-1990s.

But for now, go find “A Horrible Way to Die.” The events that unfold in it might be awful, but watching it is a damn good way to spend your time.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Yes.
Nudity – Brief.
Gore – Yes.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – This is a film that challenges your perception of evil and its many different shades.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Audio commentary with director Wingard and writer Barrett. Behind the scenes featurette. Theatrical trailer.

The Entitled (Anchor Bay, 92 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): A smart thriller that plays like a junior version of a twisty David Mamet double-cross, “The Entitled” benefits from a few surprise moments that shouldn’t be spoiled here. This isn’t on par with superior genre offerings like “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” but writer William Morrissey and director Aaron Woodley show their love and appreciation for taunt, precision-based kidnap and ransom flicks, and all of the actors, including B+-listers Victor Garber and Ray Liotta, play their parts with purpose, which elevates the slower moments and makes up for the few lags in plot. This one is definitely worth a rent. It’s better than most direct-to-DVD fare, and even a lot of wide releases.

Assassination Games (Sony, 101 minutes, R, DVD): Quick, name the last good Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. How about the best? To be fair, Van Damme only made three “good” movies during his heyday of the 1990s – “Double Impact,” “Universal Soldier” and “Timecop,” which is probably his best overall film to date. Throughout the 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s, Van Damme became a cautionary tale, another Steven Seagal-sized action star who went from box office to bombs to direct-to-DVD. In 2008, he scored a modest comeback with “JCVD,” a meta-action film where he played himself, allowing personal issues to become plot points. It resonated with fans and critics. He also returned to the “Universal Soldier” franchise for a third feature. Now, in 2011, it looks like JCVD’s career is experiencing a resurgence. He’s locked in to star in “The Expendables 2,” which is poised to become a significant franchise, and he’s starring in one of his best movies to date – “Assassination Games,” which some might argue is his best overall performance ever. Van Damme plays an assassin, duh, named Vincent Brazil, who teams with another assassin named Roland Flint, because both of them have been double-crossed by Interpol and a very nasty criminal overlord. The action isn’t anything that you haven’t seen before, the story isn’t anything you haven’t seen before, but Van Damme’s face, full of deep wrinkles that look as if time and excess carved a map of craggy reservoirs, really registers. His eyes glower in a way that surprises you. There’s pain in his face, the pain that hard living and regret can cause, and he puts it to excellent use. This is by far his most mature, nuanced role, and you can tell that he respects the opportunity to still do what he does.

Hanna (Universal, 111 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): A friend of mine, upon watching Joe Wright’s “Hanna,” said he expected more. It was too straight-forward, he said. He liked it, but was left wanting. The only thing I wanted was the movie to continue. I thought Wright’s genre thriller disguised as highbrow art was fantastic because it was so straight forward. By keeping the action moving, always moving, and the omnipresent threat of capture a reality, Wright was able to minimize the dialogue and let the increasingly-impressive Saoirse Ronan convey so much emotion with her eyes, her mouth and her fists. Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett, doing another one of her famous accents, round out the top-tier cast. Don’t be fooled by the fact that a young girl is playing the main lead, “Hanna” breaks just as many bones, snaps just as many necks and leaves just as high a bodycount as James Bond or Jason Bourne.

X-Men: First Class (Fox, 132 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Hands down, the best X-Men movie ever made. Who knew that by stripping the story down, going back to the character’s origins and focusing on the fraternal bond between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr, aka Professor X and Magneto, that director Matthew Vaughn would obliterate the stain and stench of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and even make up for “X-Men: The Last Stand,” which wasn’t the total abomination that some thought it to be, but it wasn’t that great either. “First Class” does everything right from keeping the mutants easy to recognize and their powers visually cool but not so overly CGI that it just looks fake, to playing up the human element of each mutant’s situation and going deep down the rabbit hole of the relationship between Magneto and Professor X. The cast couldn’t be better either. Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are awesome as Magneto and X. Kevin Bacon nails Sebastian Shaw. January Jones is incredibly sexy as Emma Frost. And the young mutants – Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Banshee (Caleb Jones), etc. – are better utilized than in previous X-Men films because their numbers are kept small and they each get a shining moment center stage. The only knock, and I realize that it was kind of a requirement, is the lame Hugh Jackman cameo. Can we move beyond Wolverine, please? He is not the franchise. He’s not even the most interesting mutant. Rant over. Go buy this one, now.

Fringe: The Complete Third Season (Warner Bros., 1,012 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): Also known as the season where J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman proudly let their freak flag fly and fully embraced the twisty, heady, frothy sci-fi that most casual viewers couldn’t make two sense of. That’s likely a big reason why the ratings plunged for “Fringe,” but kudos to Fox (and it pains me to say that) for sticking with the smartest, best-written show on TV right now. “Fringe” is a show about big scientific ideas that never forgets the human element, the most important of all. It has managed over the course of three seasons to maintain a level of consistency that is staggering. There’s rarely a dip in quality, even when the show takes a wide left turn and introduces musical numbers or alternates weekly episodes between two realities with two different but strikingly similar casts. Season 3 is notable for many things, namely the Doomsday Device storyline, the persistent presence of the Watchers trying to rectify a mistake, which sets up the upcoming Season 4, and the search to find a way to keep William Bell’s spirit alive even though his body has been blown to smithereens.

Also Available:

Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, The Complete Series – There’s a reason this show didn’t work, and most of it is due to Forest Whitaker, who bravely tried to create something that rarely works on TV, an original character unlike any other out there. From the jump, though, CM: Suspect Behavior just didn’t jibe. And what the hell happened to Janeane Garofalo? She barely looks like herself, much less acts like herself. Kudos to the show for trying to create a brand that wasn’t cookie-cutter like CSI, but it just didn’t work.

Everything Must Go – Will Ferrell goes dramedy. I would follow this guy anywhere. He even makes alcoholism funny.

Airwolf: The Movie – Because there isn’t enough Ernest Borgnine in everybody’s day. No, there really isn’t. He’s the guy you wish could be your Grandpa.

Politics of Love – Billed as “a comedy romance inspired by the slew of publicly documented election love stories that sprung up during Obama’s presidential push.” Did I miss something? I know he inspired hope and faith and made grown men’s legs tingle, but I can’t say that I recall a single newspaper or TV story about rampant election love.

Triad Underworld – Why is crime always underground?

Police Story: Season One – Classic 1970s television series about the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Community: The Complete Second Season – One of the funniest, most creative shows on TV right now. OK, maybe ever.

Criminal Minds: The Sixth Season – Serial killer procedural keeps chugging along, and Thomas Gibson still looks constipated six years on.

The Good Wife: The Second Season – So, a show about a philandering husband ends its second season with a cliffhanger about the cheated upon “good” wife choosing another lover? I’m confused. Whatever happened to the good old swinging 70s? Can’t we just have a key party and call it a day?

The Hide – UK character study/thriller about secrets and crimes and the tragedy that such secrets can bring.

40 days and 40 nights – No, this is not the story of Noah and his Ark. It’s the story of Josh Hartnett and his, um, his, hmmm…it’s a movie about a guy who has to keep his zipper zipped for 40 days and 40 nights or else something bad happens. Wait, this is a romantic comedy. Nothing bad ever happens.

Scarface: Limited Edition Steelbook – Do you think Brian DePalma or Al Pacino feel even the slightest twinge of remorse for creating a film that has now become a cultural milestone for so many wannabe gangsters and thugs who completely missed the point that crime is bad and only chose to remember that Pacino gets a hot blonde and a mountain of coke and he kills people with chainsaws and machine guns.

Straw Dogs: Unrated Version – Maybe this whole remake craze isn’t so bad because as a result, studios keep upgrading the original films to Blu-Ray. The latest to benefit from this phenomenon is Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 mediation on violence and the modern man, which starred Dustin Hoffman as a meek and mawkish mathematician who gets crazy violent after locals terrorize him and his family.

Dressed to Kill – Killing people can be such a drag.

No Ordinary Family: The Complete First Season – You have to love the optimism of this ABC superhero/family/comedy hybrid because the DVD box art says “First Season,” not “Complete Series.” The show has been canceled, which is a shame, but not unexpected. Genre offerings rarely catch on when given very little time to flesh out characters. The whole mad rush, superpowers must be revealed in the Pilot, explained in the second episode and some crazy crisis introduced by the third hour, can be exhausting for viewers who don’t digest every media form like it was a comic book. Julie Benz is excellent here, as always. Her character keeps the show grounded, even as TV hubby Michael Chiklis falls victim to the whole ‘Look at me, I can fly’ cliché and immediately decides to go fight crime before even trying to figure out what made him superhuman.

The Office: Season Seven – The season that Steve Carrell left and NBC held its collective breath that the strong ensemble they had carefully crafted would withstand the departure. Prognosis: Good.

Not To Be Overlooked:

Bedways (Strand Releasing, 76 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Rolf Peter Kahl’s impressive “Bedways” defies description because it so nimbly moves between genres that typically don’t allow for much leeway. There’s a complicated relationship drama, a psychosexual thriller and a borderline X-rated adult feature at play. Somehow, all three mesh remarkably well in this German import that takes a similar approach to sex as “9 Songs” and “Shortbus,” meaning full-frontal nudity and intercourse is shown, but Kahl improves upon his contemporaries by exploring very rich, very real emotions and the impact that those emotions, pain, rejection and jealousy, can have on the soul.

The minimalist story is this: Nina (Miriam Mayet) is directing a film about love and loss. She asks a friend, Hans (Matthias Faust), to be in it. And she hires another actress, Marie (Lana Cooper), to play his lover. From that simple set-up, “Bedways” takes off in unexpected, wildly erotic ways. There are several scenes that, hands down, decimate any previous attempt to portray real sex on film. One scene in particular featuring Mayet at a peepshow, pleasuring herself while Hans watches, is so undeniably intense, so unbelievably hot, that it makes Hollywood’s tepid take on erotic cinema, ie “Basic Instinct” or “Body of Evidence,” seem juvenile and silly.

Few actresses would dare to take the scene as far, to actually lose control, to make it seem, whether real or not, that what is being shown is no longer acting, that it is a primal fulfillment of an ancient urge.

It’s a brilliant moment in a brave film full of fearless performances by a group of actors who obviously trust the artistic vision of their director, and are willing to bare all in order to make his statement mean that much more.

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New Releases for Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2011

Posted Sep 1, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Sep 1, 2011 at 08:14 AM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Norwegian Ninja
Genre: Action/Comedy
Directed by: Thomas Cappelen Malling
Run time: 77 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Format: DVD

The Lowdown: This is what you might imagine happening if a Wes Anderson arthouse film went slumming at the Drive-In and got knocked up by a ridiculously awesome 1970s B-movie.

“Norwegian Ninja,” originally released as “Kommandør Treholt & ninjatroppen,” is preposterous, over-the-top and undeniably fun. Plus, it just happens to have more than a kernel of truth buried deep within its subversive, throwing-star-loving soul.

Director Thomas Cappelen Malling based his film, which combines archived footage, re-enactments, stop-motion animation and a bevy of interesting but not annoying camera tricks and sleights of hand, on his own 2006 book about Arne Treholt, a politician and diplomat convicted in 1985 of treason and espionage. Treholt allegedly was providing secrets to both Russia and Iraq. The only difference is that Cappelen Malling’s book was a satirical look at a real-life incident, substituting the mystical martial arts for cold-war espionage.

In Cappelen Malling’s version, Treholt is actually the leader of an elite squad of Norwegian ninjas who are tasked with keeping their country safe from outside threats to land, liberty and the Norwegian way of life. Mads Ousdal does a fantastic job playing Treholt as a suave, James Bond-era spy. Ousdal never breaks a smile. He plays Treholt as a total straight man, regardless of how ridiculous the circumstance he finds himself in. It doesn’t hurt that everytime Treholt appears at a meeting or out in public, he emerges from a mysterious puff of white smoke, one of his remarkable ninja camouflage techniques.

Cappelen Malling has a blast turning genre conventions on their head. There are moments where “Ninja” resembles a live-action “Team America: World Police” at its funniest. Other times, it comes across as a lower-budget Golan-Globus Production like 1981’s “Enter the Ninja,” where Treholt’s team battles government operatives who are secretly trying to usurp the Norwegian way of life by destroying the ninja corps, leveling a municipal building and blowing up an oil refinery.

“Ninja” is not laugh-out-loud funny, as you might expect if you’ve seen the theatrical trailer. It mines deeper, darker springs than that, giving up the cheap and easy giggles for the more nuanced details that induce genuine, oh-that’s-clever guffaws. It also delves into personal politics, presenting Treholt as a national hero to Norway, instead of its most infamous traitor.

In real life, Treholt was sentenced to 20 years in prison, of which he served just eight years before being pardoned. During his trial, which captivated the country, a host of controversial allegations emerged, including that the evidence against Treholt had been manufactured.

Cappelen Malling dives head-first into those rough waters as well, and in a deft artistic touch, creates the character of a young ninja in training who is viewed as a very important person in the ninja ranks. It turns out that the young ninja does hold a special role – taking Treholt’s place in prison so the real Treholt can continue leading the secret ninja defense force.

This is definitely a film that deserves to be seen. It’s likely not for everyone, but those who get the humor will find lots to enjoy.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – No.
Nudity – No.
Gore – No.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – The CIA, go figure.
Buy/Rent – Rent it.
On the Web – http://norwegianninja.com/

The Perfect Host (Magnet/Magnolia, 94 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Upon first viewing, “The Perfect Host” looks to be a nifty thriller about a deranged psychopath with a good and unexpected twist. It benefits from two standout performances, David Hyde Pierce as a nebbish, effeminate homeowner hosting a dinner party and Clayne Crawford (The Glades) as a bank robber looking for a safe place where he can hide. “Host” is all about appearances, and how they don’t always match up with what you expect. It has a nasty, evil edge that slowly reveals itself as the evening plays out. Writer/director Nick Tomnay does a good job for the first 45 minutes of ratcheting up the tension in his two-man cat and mouse game. And when the reality of the situation unfolds, Tomnay’s central concept seems fresh and original. Then it falls apart. Quickly. Suddenly, the questions mount up. The who, what, where and whys undermine the carefully constructed house of cards, and the climatic confrontation in a parking garage relies so heavily on a contrived set of circumstances that it comes off as completely unbelievable. If you think I’m being purposefully vague, you’re right. I don’t want to give away the few interesting turns that “Host” deftly makes before tumbling into ridiculousness. Trust me, I’m being kind. Think of it as my way of trying to be the best host that I can to you, not wanting to spoil the meal that’s laid out before you, even though I know it’s undercooked.

X (IFC, 90 minutes, Unrated, DVD): Two prostitutes find themselves thrown together in this nifty little Australian import that plays out over the course of an evening that goes from bad (witnessing a murder) to worse (the killer is a cop and a seemingly unstoppable force) to incredibly bad (the killer cop is determined to find the two hookers and silence them forever). “X” isn’t a groundbreaking film, but it is highly enjoyable. The sex industry setting provides a needed infusion of freshness, the characters are somewhat clichéd (one call girl is 30 and wants to retire, the other is literally fresh off the bus and trying to figure out how to survive on the streets) but still manage to draw you in and director Jon Hewitt shoots much of “X” like he’s making a documentary. The streets of the city’s red light district have a menacing vibe, cold and brutal. Hookers attack one another for disrupting a potential transaction. The lone good guy who manages to pop up randomly during the night is a young cab driver practicing to be a magician. Such interesting little details are what make “X” a fascinating slice of genre cinema.

Bereavement (Anchor Bay, 103 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Having not seen Stevan Mena’s “Malevolence,” I was unsure what to expect in the prequel, “Bereavement.” Having seen “Bereavement,” I’m not sure I want to know how the story continues. It’s not that “Bereavement” is a bad movie, per se, just a pointless entry in the growing ever-so-tired ‘crazy guy kidnaps young women to torture but forgets to explain why he is doing it’ genre. In fact, I actually liked this movie better back in 2001 when it was called “Frailty” and directed by Bill Paxton. “Bereavement” mines similar territory, exploring what makes a killer become, well, a killer. Is it learned or engrained? There seem to be definite hints at motivation in Mena’s script. The crazy guy in question, Graham Sutter (Brett Rickaby), spouts some pseudo forgiveness/salvation/mumbo jumbo, and he seems controlled in part by a bunch of weird skulls positioned throughout his house and around his property. He also kidnaps a young boy at the beginning of the film, possibly to be a protégé, and we get to watch and wonder whether the boy, as he grows into a teen-ager, will pick up the family business. But there’s so little exposition that you just can’t get invested in the story’s outcome other than to watch a genre favorite, Michael Biehn, deliver another sturdy performance as a surrogate father to his niece after his brother is killed in a car accident. There’s plenty of gore – buckets of blood, actually, in the last 30 minutes or so – but I couldn’t help wondering what the point was. The few sparkles of originality, such as the kidnapped boy suffering from a condition that makes it impossible for him to feel pain, only serve to frustrate because they aren’t fleshed out enough to resonate.

The Vampire Diaries: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros., 927 minutes, Unrated, DVD): It’s cheesy, utterly preposterous and ridiculously fast paced, but damn if “The Vampire Diaries” isn’t addictive as hell, must-see TV. There’s something about the show’s structure – the main characters literally whipsaw from one worlds-shattering crisis to another, day after day – that makes you question whether the writers can maintain the vamps and wolves and witches on crack pace that they established in the first season. But sure enough, Season Two is just as good, even better, than the first. The second season introduces several key elements that elevate it above YA-lit-light (that’s Young Adult Literature, for you other old fogies who love this show, but didn’t know it was based on a best-selling series of teen books). One is the increased presence of witches, which surprisingly meshes well with the over-abundance of supernatural entities running around the cursed town of Mystic Falls, VA. The other is the emergence of The Originals, the first vampire family in history, with two main vamps, Klaus and Elijah, who appear poised to be major players in Season 3. The show’s hook is its excellent casting. The Salvatore brothers, Damon and Stefan, are expertly played by Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder with just the right soapy mix of angst and camp. Nina Dobrev continues to excel playing dual roles, Katherine and Katarina. And the rest of the supporting players bring their best to their respective roles as either supernatural allies, enemies or clueless high school kids looking to hook up. Mystic Falls continues to be a town that never fails to host a celebration or festival or parade – every other day. Literally, these people live to dress up and celebrate their heritage, which is surprising given how entwined the town’s history is with death, blood-letting and carnage at the hands of vamps and werewolves alike. Co-creators Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec have created a vibrant world for their characters to inhabit. With continued solid support casting and unexpected twists every episode – another VD staple is the one-two-three, sometimes four major plot progressions that occur every episode in the last eight minutes – the town of Mystic Falls may keep bringing fans back for years to come.

Wrecked (IFC, 91 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): It’s like “127 Hours” and “Buried” teamed up to see just how much punishment they could inflict on poor Adrien Brody. Then the cougar from “24” showed up. Throw in a little concussion-caused amnesia, a bag of cash, a gun and several dead bodies and you have “Wrecked,” a thriller that defies logic by being so captivating despite its self-imposed restrictions. And director Michael Greenspan and writer Christopher Dodd steadfastly adhere to a set of limitations that might cripple a different film. For one, they never allow Brody’s character to walk. He literally crawls through a forest. It’s a physically demanding performance by Brody, an Oscar winner who continues to make brave choices years after taking home the gold. Last year, he battled Predators and starred in. Here he commits himself wholeheartedly to a role that traps him for nearly 30 minutes in a wrecked car, then forces him to crawl, swim and roll through thick woods for an hour. The most intriguing part of the story is the amnesia angle, which legitimately plays better than you might expect. A few well-placed flashbacks slowly fill in the gaps, but it’s not entirely clear until the very last frame exactly what happened to cause the crash that is central to “Wrecked.”

Roadkill (Vivendi, 88 minutes, Unrated, DVD): The latest entry in the “Maneater Series,” a wonderfully wacky and tacky collection of bad CGI creature features, mostly original films made for the SyFy Channel, involves a cross-country tour of Ireland, a gypsy curse and a giant prehistoric bird that feasts on human flesh and only can be repelled by an ancient amulet. For a low-budget production, “Roadkill” is better than it should be. The characters are all paint-by-numbers: The ex-boyfriend, the black best buddy, the awkward angry guy, the flirty girl, the strong girl who might survive and her brother. The gypsies are pretty predictable, they don’t negotiate and they don’t care much for tourists, especially tourists who run over the family matriarch, thereby setting in motion the need to summon the Simuroc, said ancient evil bird, which promptly begins terrorizing the group’s mobile camper. The biggest surprise in “Roadkill” is the blink and you’ll miss it appearance by Stephen Rea, the Oscar-nominated star of “The Crying Game” and “Interview With A Vampire.” Rea is the unlucky former A-list actor who gets called upon to class up the production, and he is good for his brief screen time as the brother of a former Simuroc victim who must help the gypsies to lift his own family’s curse.

The Coffin (Breaking Glass/Vicious Circle, 84 minutes, Unrated, DVD): A startlingly original nightmare about how the power of belief can take a terrifying turn, this import from Thailand centers around an ancient ritual whereby people lay in coffins and pretend to be dead in order to reverse karma and bring good fortune to a loved one in need. Director Ekachai Uekrongtham wisely plays up the claustrophobic nature of coffins, the cramped confines, the inability to move much, even if some thing might be locked inside the box with you. And he pours on the unsettling images, constantly keeping the viewer off balance, unaware if what they are seeing is real or a dream-like vision. The truly scary thing about “The Coffin” is that the ritual is real. Even if the rest is made up, that nugget of truth is enough to unnerve you because we all know that once angered, the spirit world can extract a heavy toll on those who dare mess with the mystical arts. This one is a must-see for the imagery alone. It’s just gravy that the story is as compelling as it is.

Also Available:

Sons of Anarchy: Season 3

Good Will Hunting

UFC: Bad Blood

BKO: Bangkok Knockout

90210: The Third Season

Storage Wars: Season One

The Twilight Zone: Season 5

Only in America with Larry the Cable Guy: Volume One

Phantom Pain

If A Tree Falls…

Prom

The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D

Cougar Town: The Complete Second Season

Desperate Housewives: The Complete Seventh Season

Detroit 187: The Complete First Season

Running Wilde: The Complete Series

House: The Complete Seventh Season

Wonders of the Universe

Skateland

Forks over Knives

 

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Fox News Channel Has Big Ratings Month

Posted Aug 30, 2011 by Walt Belcher

Updated Aug 30, 2011 at 02:03 PM

Summer is usually a slow time for news but Hurricane Irene, the Casey Anthony trial and ongoing political developments have kept eyeballs glued to cable news outlets.

According to figures from Nielsen Media Research, August has been a good month for the Fox News Channel which has been averaging nearly 2 million viewers in prime-time.

So far this month FNC is the third most-watched cable network in primetime with CNN ranked 27 and MSNBC at 29.
In Primetime, FNC also is ahead of CNN and MSNBC combined in the 25-54 demographic.

FNC also logged a sweep of the top 13 programs in cable news based on total viewers. The network is up 11 percent in 25-54 over last summer.

  FOX News Channel’s nightly newscasts anchored – “FOX Report with Shepard Smith” and “Special Report” with Bret Baier are ranked are among the top 5 cable news programs for the month and both have double digit increases over Aug ‘10. 

  Top five cable news programs in total viewers include: The O’Reilly Factor (2,890,000); Hannity (2,082,000); Special Report (1,992,000); On the Record (1,817,000); and FOX Report (1,756,000).

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New Releases for Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011

Posted Aug 23, 2011 by John Allman

Updated Aug 23, 2011 at 07:50 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

Troll Hunter
Genre: Horror/Found Footage
Directed by: André Øvredal
Run time: 99 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Ah, Norway. My how you have just really come along in the past few years with one solid genre film after another.

From “Let the Right One In” to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” trilogy, the chilly, snow-laden country has established itself as a hotbed of cinematic talent. And now we have “TrollHunter,” the wonderful found footage genre flick about a college film crew who stumbles onto a secret government program to protect citizens from rampaging trolls.

Here’s the thing, though. While I thoroughly enjoyed director André Øvredal’s film, and found it to be a stellar example of fantasy and reality merging in a way that the CGI was barely noticeable, I couldn’t help but wonder whether “TrollHunter” would work even better without the “found footage” gimmick.

You could have essentially the same movie, just without the reliance and contrivance of everything seemingly being recorded. And that would allow for more organic scares as the major troll attacks would be bigger in scale and not simply relegated to what one can see through a camera lens.

It might cost significantly more, which may explain why Øvredal chose to go with the single-camera angle at all times, but I think it would produce an even more satisfying drive-in classic.

As it is, “TrollHunter” truly exists in a league of its own. It doesn’t pander to the audience with jump scares that make up the bulk of the “Paranormal Activity” and “Blair Witch”-style movies. It doesn’t shy away from showing giant trolls in all their gnarly glory early on, and often, throughout the feature. That’s a particularly welcome touch, by the way. If Øvredal had decided to withhold his big money shots for the climax, “TrollHunter” would have been a disappointing footnote to the “would have, should have, could have” school of found footage rejects.

The best part about the film, in addition to the special effects, which truly are remarkable and look like a cross between Jim Henson and Lord of the Rings, is the main character, the Troll Hunter, Hans, a hardscrabble Norwegian “superhero” who has literally spent his entire life guarding people and hunting trolls for the government. He’s a fascinating creation, a man seemingly without fear, who seems resigned to his lot in life but isn’t afraid to speak up at the bureaucratic pinheads who work so hard to mask the existence of trolls.

The only ding that can be put on the film is the tacked on ending, which follows a superb battle on a desolate snowy tundra. It doesn’t properly tie the film together and it only leaves you wanting something more satisfying than the news footage reel that serves as the documentary-style conclusion.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – No.
Nudity – No.
Gore – No.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Trolls!
Buy/Rent – Buy it!
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Deleted scenes, extended scenes, visual effects, photo galleries, Improv and Bloopers and “HDNet: A Look at the Troll Hunter.”
On the Web – http://www.trollhunterfilm.com/

Cold Fish (The Collective, 146 minutes, R, DVD): I watch a lot of movies. A lot of movies. And for the better part of two hours and 26 minutes, I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next in director Shion Sono’s stunningly brutal masterpiece, “Cold Fish.”

Genre fans who have followed cult cinema from the Far East for years should immediately know Sono’s work. He’s the visionary behind “Suicide Club” and “Strange Circus,” to name two of his more well-known films that struck a chord in the U.S.

But nothing that American fans have seen from him can quite prepare you for “Cold Fish,” a tale of love, murder, mental illness and the consequences that ripple out from seemingly innocent actions.

This is the story of two couples, Nobuyuki and Taeko Syamoto and Yukio and Aiko Murata. The two men, Nobuyuki and Yukio, own competing exotic fish stores. Nobuyuki and his second wife, Taeko, are struggling to find happiness. His daughter Mitsuko refuses to accept her stepmother and begins acting out, shoplifting. And that is how they come to meet Yukio, a larger than life benefactor, a man seemingly incapable of taking ‘No’ for an answer, who appears unbelievably generous if a little overbearing. OK, a lot overbearing.

Things happen fast from there, amazingly fast.

Don’t be put off by the two-plus-hour runtime, “Cold Fish” has a rhythm all its own and it hums along at an accelerated clip. You quickly lose track of the time because you become immersed in the unexpected thrill of not knowing what might happen next.

“Cold Fish” is an unflinchingly vicious, unbelievably bloody tale. It rivals “I Saw the Devil” for carnage, but much like its Korean counterpart (the two films bear striking similarities in tone and overall themes), there is a point to the mayhem that, unlike American thrillers, really catches you off-guard when it slams home.

Bloody Disgusting, the horror website helping to pick the foreign and festival favorite films that comprise its new “Bloody Disgusting Selects” series, should be commended. This is a brave, bold choice – a film that horror films will devour, and one very deserving of being seen.

Super Hybrid (Anchor Bay, 95 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Here’s the thing about killer car flicks, they rarely work. The problem is easy to see – a car just isn’t a scary substitute for a big, bad, living, breathing maniac chasing you. The best killer car flick of all time, “Christine,” was successful because it had rich character development and the impeccable direction of John Carpenter. But for every “Christine,” there’s a B-grade killer car title like “The Ambulance” that just can’t muster the scares. “Super Hybrid” lives up to its name in the sense that it’s both a killer car flick AND an alien invasion flick. You see, the car isn’t just alive, it’s some kind of crazy morphing alien creature that literally ingests its victims in a black sea of goo. While that’s pretty interesting, the filmmakers limit themselves by placing almost the entire film inside a locked police impound/repair garage. There’s only so many times characters can run from floor to floor, narrowly avoiding death at the hands of a killer car creature that keeps changing its skin. “Super Hybrid” also suffers from the decision to make one of the main characters such an unlikable butthole that you literally keep praying for him to die. That’s a shame too, because the actor, Oded Fehr, is usually a strong genre character actor. Here, however, he’s given some of the worst dialogue ever, which only reinforces the strong dislike that grows and grows while he is onscreen.

The Beaver (Sony, 91 minutes, PG-13, Blu-Ray): Here’s the thing – do we live in a world where it’s OK to like a Mel Gibson movie anymore? Or is it sacrilege to still be entertained by an actor whose job it is to become other people, thereby making you forget about the ugly person he might actually be in real life?

Gibson’s long, sordid list of public scandals, from his religious beliefs that sparked controversy to his anti-Semitic tirades, his drunken escapades, his divorce and affair and subsequent lovechild to the blistering audio tapes of a raving madman threatening unimaginable violence on a woman he claimed to love as he spit out one venomous and racist rant after another.

These are not easy outburst to ignore, much less forgive.

And the fact that they come from a man who for so long has been a part of the cultural zeitgeist makes it that much more difficult. This is Mad Max, after all. The dashing and unhinged Martin Riggs, the cop everyone wanted on their side. He’s been our Patriot and given us his Passion. And box office hit after box office hit only solidified his status as one of our favorite actors of all time.

And by all accounts, “The Beaver” is an achievement that deserves to be seen, a film that hinges on a Gibson performance that is both daring and redeeming.

Is it OK to enjoy that performance, though? Have we even gotten to a place where it’s easy to watch Gibson back on screen? I can’t answer that yet – “The Beaver” is still sitting atop a stack of DVDs waiting. It’s closer to being played than it was. And maybe that’s answer enough to the quandary that haunts my heart.

Hostage (Lionsgate, 113 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): How in the world did I ever miss this taunt Bruce Willis actioner? It’s like a mini-“Die Hard” with a fantastic performance from Willis as a former big-city hostage negotiator who switches gears following a disastrous standoff and becomes a small town sheriff in northern California. Florent Emilio Siri’s 2005 flick whisks by with solid set pieces, nice camera flourishes and an incredible, standout turn by a young Ben Foster as a seriously deranged adolescent monster. There are plot holes – you never really learn who is behind the effort to force Willis’ character to undermine the hostage situation in order to salvage a cached disc of money transfers – but they don’t derail the fun to be had squirming on the couch as Siri ratchets up the tension with an escalating game of cat and mouse. This is a great addition to your Blu-Ray library, a seriously overlooked gem.

Also Available:

Rounders – Another great catalog upgrade and a stellar cast with Damon, Norton and Malkovich.

Win Win – There hasn’t been a good scholastic wrestling movie since, well, “Vision Quest.” And while I doubt this will match the former’s epic battle between Louden Swain and Shute, it’s still nice to see wrestling get some love.

Roger Corman Cult Classics Sword and Sorcery Collection – Four so-bad-they-re-good sword and sandal flicks produced by Roger the Great, including two films (Deathstalker and Barbarian Queen) starring the late Lana Clarkson, and one featuring David Carradine (The Warrior and the Sorceress) , two actors who sadly gained more fame from their infamous deaths than their creative talents. The fourth film is “Deathstalker II.”

POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold – The more I watch Morgan Spurlock, the more I appreciate what he has done for the documentary genre, especially making it relevant for a new generation.

Off the Map: The Complete Series – Maybe they should have cast Izzie in this ill-advised series that tried to make Doctors Without Borders soaped up and sexy.

Gossip Girl: The Complete Fourth Season – It starts here, the official Bring Back Taylor Momsen campaign. Until it’s successful, I will watch no more GG. Fear my blogger’s wrath!

Brothers and Sisters: The Complete Fifth Season – Is it just me, or did this show become like a watered-down version of “Soap” minus Katherine Helmond and the ventriloquist’s dummy?

Bambi II – Rejected titles include, Bambi II: Hunting Season; Bambi II: Mother’s Day; Bambi II: Live Free or Die Thumper.

Little Big Soldier – Hey, remember Jackie Chan? No, not the guy from “Rush Hour” and “Shanghai Noon.”  The guy who made great martial arts movies like “Supercop” and “Police Story.” Yeah, that’s the Jackie Chan who resurfaces here.

NCIS: The Eighth Season – Mister Shoop! Chainsaw is terrorizing the other students again.

NCIS: Los Angeles – The Complete Second Season – Ever watch this show and wish they had opted to go with the parrot from “Deep Blue Sea” instead of Chris O’Donnell as the sidekick? Me too.

Tracker – War veteran gets hired to track a fugitive who allegedly killed a soldier and escaped into the wilds of New Zealand. That’s it. No jokes. That’s really what this movie is about!

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