I was starting to think the only comedians that get hour long specials any more were the ones with obscenity-soaked acts that were sprinkled with sexual humor (or riddled with just as much).  But then Pete Holmes came along.  Throughout his hour long special that was recorded in Austin, Texas sure, there are a few obscenities and a little sexual humor, but he never uses it as a crutch to carry his performance along.  From the moment he stepped out onto the stage he reminded me of that friend from high school who was that all around good guy that always knew how to make you laugh.  With first impressions set aside and as the act progressed I was happy to see I wasn’t disappointed.

Considering this was an hour long special, Holmes manages to cover a variety of topics and make them relatable to everyone in the audience.  Whether it’s discussing how he used GPS to get out of a bad neighborhood, hating a girlfriend’s friends (or family), to the awkwardness of carrying a dog, Holmes manages to deliver these bits as situations we all could have experienced.

Has there ever been anyone like Frank Zappa? He had a rare combination of incredible professionalism and steadfast sobriety mixed with zany insanity and freakish detours on offbeat paths. He is the freak of all freaks of the sixties yet had an unwavering distaste for the rampant drug use of the time. His music couldn't be more jarring or unconventional, yet he liked stately classical compositions to relax. A Token of His Extreme was a passion project for Zappa that he paid for with his own money back in 1974. It was produced with the intention of being an American Network Television special, but it never saw the light of day in the US.

The DVD also includes an appearance on The Mike Douglas Show in 1976 in which Zappa lamented about the television special. “This was put together with my own money and my own time, and it's been offered to television networks and to syndication, and it has been steadfastly rejected by the American television industry. It has been shown in primetime in France and Switzerland, with marvelous results. It's probably one of the finest pieces of video work that any human being has ever done. I did it myself. And the animation work that you're going to see in this was done by a guy named  Bruce Bickford, and I hope he is watching the show, because it's probably the first time that a lot of people in America got a chance to see it.”

"'I've been given me the toughest job I've ever had in my life, but also the most rewarding. What can be more important to the war effort than preserving the fighting strength of our troops? We must maximize the odds of every soldier that passes through our portal... His country is counting on him. His country is counting on us."

The first thing you have to understand about Vietnam was that it was unlike any war the country had ever participated in. Up until this time, the United States had not failed in conflict. The Vietnam War was also the very first war to show up in living color each night on our television screens. War correspondents had a new weapon in their arsenal, and it was called the television camera. The nightly news was dominated by these gruesome pictures of death and destruction. As the body count mounted, so did opposition to the war. By the time the war finally did end for Americans, over 60,000 Americans had been killed in action. Approval for the war fell to less than 20%. The war dominated our pop culture. Music, in particular, reflected the frustration of the times. The war even led to the voting age being dropped to 18 so that a soldier could have the right to vote. The war brought on the modern Veteran's Administration to deal with the thousands of wounded when they returned home and throughout their lives. The impact of the war was huge, and it took a show like China Beach to humanize one of the most divisive events in American history.

"You're so unprepared for this..."

If you're a fan of the 1985 comedy staring Michael J. Fox, that statement is particularly appropriate. We all remember the cute high school romp where Michael J. Fox discovers that his family has been hiding a long dark secret. They are werewolves. Now, the young teen finds himself having to deal with the usual growing pains of adolescence on top of dealing with the family curse. Before long he's a basketball star and the most popular kid in school. A fun time was had by all. The film spawned a sequel with Jason Bateman and an animated series on television. It was all a hoot.

Oscilloscope Laboratories distributes unusual films. Unusual and special. They have packaged two documentaries together: Only the Young/Tchoupitoulas. The first is about kids wandering around a suburban wasteland in desert California. The second is about kids wandering the streets of New Orleans. They are very different experiences, but they are both about the flow of real life. They both have voices that are real and at times inspired. They are about avoiding dramatic structure and explaining and just revealing.

Documentaries used to be very predictable and somewhat uniform in approach, but all sorts of stylistic variations, conceptual approaches, and philosophies of content have been mutating over the last 40 years in respect to what defines a documentary. A documentary style that epitomizes the traditional approach is the style that Ken Burns exhibits. His prodigious output is meticulous and universally loved. It takes a subject and then thoroughly and extensively examines that subject with great reverence and detail, usually to be broadcast on PBS over many nights. This is best reflected in one of his most popular series, The Civil War. It usually involves photographs and videos when available with copious dramatic narration including famous actors reading from the words of historical figures. Then there is the example of Fredrick Wiseman, who would take the subject of some modern institution and then simply record footage of people enmeshed in the institution and allow those events to speak for themselves without narration. Between those two extremes many variations have occurred. The History channel is well known for playing fast and loose with the way they put together their “documentaries”. Many have a large percentage of dramatic re-enactments of events that may or may not have happened.