High art it isn’t, but one thing’s for sure: Dynasty is ass-in-seat television. Launched in 1981, the John Forsythe-Linda Evans-Joan Collins starring vehicle crossed lines and took chances few of its contemporaries were willing to take. For several years Dynasty defied conservative conventions with sordid tales of extramarital affairs, catfights, and the hot-button issue of homosexual parenting. It’s this last issue that is featured so prominently in Dynasty – The Third Season, Volume Two.

Erle Stanley Gardner wrote crime fiction, and while many of his 100 or so works are unknown to most of us, he created a character that has become as identified with criminal lawyers as any other in fiction. It was in these crime novels that Perry Mason first faced a courtroom. He developed a style where he would investigate these terrible crimes his clients were on trial for. He would find the real killer, and in what has become a Hollywood cliché, reveal his findings in a crucial moment during the trial.

There seems to be some confusion over the title of this 2008 direct to video release. The release is simply called The Nutty Professor, like the original Jerry Lewis vehicle from 1963. It appears the working title of the film was The Nutty Professor 2: Facing The Fear. It is still listed under that title in the IMDB. Whatever the title, you should know that this isn’t your father’s Nutty Professor. This version is a CG animation feature, but don’t expect Shrek or Pixar quality work here. It’s a considerably lower budget affair, and that shows pretty clearly in the final product.

December 3, 2008 11:07 A.M.: Dear Diary. Today I had a very harrowing experience. I think this event has left me feeling rather shaken, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to forget the horrors I have just witnessed. It all started when I decided to watch the new direct to video horror film Zombie Diaries. I just couldn’t wait. As I picked up the box and read the interesting description, my heart just went pitter patter in my chest. The box promised the best zombie film since 28 Days Later, maybe even the best zombie movie ever.

One of the hardest parts of reviewing DVD’s for this site is getting dropped in to the middle of a show I neither followed nor cared to follow and being told to judge fairly and objectively. Getting one’s bearings can be the toughest part of such a task, but this I will attempt to do with Seventh Heaven – The Seventh Season. As if playing catch-up with only one season to go on isn’t enough, the series hurls character after character at the unsuspecting viewer at a furious pace.

While many of us think that President-elect Obama might have more important things to be concentrating on right now, I don’t know, like maybe the economy, we’re hearing a lot about his search for a new doggie. Of course, with a child who is allergic to dogs the search is complicated by the need for a hypoallergenic dog, if such a thing exists. No matter; it is certainly a tradition among most occupants of  the White House to have pets. Most, of course, were dogs, allergies included.

Dominating 360’s, GTA IV making mistakes, and Escapist Gaming - Welcome to the column with copy protection that can only be decrypted with sharp wit or a giant pair of “hackers” known as Dare to Play the Game.

Last week was Thanksgiving. I ate lots of turkey, I ate lots of pie. The combination made me sleep until well today. No, okay okay not really. However, I had no desire to go out to Black Friday and found myself sitting at home for most of the weekend.

What kind of woman could possibly make the oh-so-tough Arthur Fonzarelli fall hopelessly in love? We find out in the three-part opener of Happy Days – The Complete Fourth Season in one of the great names of the small screen, Pinky Tuscadero. Pinky (a stunning Roz Kelly) shows spunk as a female version of Fonzy (Henry Winkler in his career-making role), and it’s surprising she wasn’t used more in the series run. Perhaps CBS felt fettering Fonzy with a regular gal-pal took away from his enigmatic qualities, which he would eventually lose anyway in the show’s eleven seasons.

Another cheery bit of nonsense in this release, consisting of a half-dozen SpongeBob cartoons. The disc gets its title from the first episode, “What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?” In this story, our hero, rejected by all his friends for his consistent screw-ups winds up, after an amnesia-inducing bonk on the head, becoming the hero of a crime-ridden metropolis. Weird and funny stuff, and the same is true for the other pieces. That said, there's even less of a connection than usual between the pieces, not even a hint of a thematic commonality that has usually been the case with these releases. What we have are six apparently randomly chosen episodes, adding up to 78 minutes of silliness.

My experience with the UFC is more of a classic one. I remember watching various pay per views on DVD and VHS of the old matches back when they had 1 night tournaments and everybody was either talking about Gracie, Shamrock or Severn. Recently, I had started watching random fights on the Spike Network to pass the time when I wasn’t interested in WWE or TNA wrestling. However, the one thing that got me most interested in UFC or MMA as of late is one man. No, not Kimbo Slice. That man would be Brock Lesnar. The man who would came to UFC to prove he was a true fighter and put away of those rumors that existed about wrestlers and not really being able to compete. UFC 87 featured Brock vs Heath Herring and a Welterweight championship fight among 8 other matches on the card. Was it time for the “Next Big Thing”?