Imagine Sheriff Andy Taylor older and now an attorney, and you pretty much have the set up for Matlock. Forget for a second that both characters were played by Andy Griffith. That’s not all they have in common. Matlock is every bit the “southern gentleman” that Taylor was. He might be a little smarter, but he walks and talks like Andy Taylor.

 

Wings was one of those unusual sitcoms that depended more on the characters than the situations they were in. While the setting was a small Nantucket airline owned by two brothers, most of the episodes had very little to do with flying. Rather, the writers populated this small airline with very distinctive personalities and let these interactions be fodder for the funny. The characters were played by more than competent actors, many of whom have proven themselves beyond this quaint sitcom. Timothy Daly played Joe Hackett, the older, more responsible brother who was often the show’s straight man. His rather adolescent sibling Brian was played by Steven Weber. I wouldn’t exactly say this was Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, but their conflicts over maturity fueled the characters. The airline’s love interest was Helen Chappel, played by Crystal Bernard. She was an aspiring symphony cellist who worked the airport’s lunch counter. For much of the show’s run she had an on again off again romance with Joe. By far the most animated character was mechanic Lowell Mather, played by Thomas Haden Church. It’s still amazing to me that this rather unintelligent character was played by the same guy who brought us Sandman in the latest Spider-Man film. Finally there was cabbie Antonio Scarpacci, played by the current Adrian Monk, Tony Shalhoub. Antonio is an Italian immigrant who has trouble understanding things most of the time, leading to some of the better moments in the series. Fay, played by Rebecca Shull, is the mothering member of the cast. And Roy Biggins (Schram) runs the rival airline and is often engaged in one underhanded scheme or another.

 

Kino has long been the go-to company for first-rate DVD editions of classic films, with a special emphasis on the silent era. Recently, they have released a box set that is something of a wet dream for fans of vintage, hard-to-find cinema: the German Expressionism Collection.

There are four films here, and the first is the most inevitable: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), which is where expressionism first arrives on film. I doubt readers of this column need an introduction to this tale of a mad hypnotist and the homicidal somnambulist under his spell, and anyone interested in this set will no doubt already own a copy of this film. This is a nice print, with two soundtracks (a new one, and a contemporary one). One of the extras on the disc is a 43-minute version of director Robert Wiene’s 1920 Genuine: The Tale of a Vampire. Though this is still a condensation, it is a huge step up from Image’s 1996 edition which offered only a 3-minute excerpt of that film.

As we know by now, Dragon Dynasty is the Criterion of Kung Fu movies. They take any Kung Fu movie, clean up the audio and video where needed and provide a slew of extras for us to enjoy. From featurettes to commentaries with expert Bey Logan, it always provided the Hong Kong kung fu fans with a presentation second to none. However, as with Criterion classics, the movie isn't always second to none.

Kong Ko (played by Wu Jing (Jacky Wu))was a member of the National Kung Fu Team. He now spends his off time at an opera house performing for the folks a blend of descriptive dance and his fancy moves. A group of thugs come in one night and try to recruit the young warrior to fight in the underground fighting circuit they take care of. At first Kong doesn't wish to participate. However, his co-worker/love interest Siu Tin (played by Miki Yeung) convinces him otherwise after striking a deal with the circuit gang.

Dance movies can be interesting especially when it involves hot sweaty bodies and bodacious moves along a club floor. Did I just say bodacious? "Pauly Shore is on line one, please pick up the white courtesy phone". I'll ignore that for now. Dirty Dancing or Footloose are great examples. Some should be drag into the street and shot. I knew that Feel the Noise looked bad the minute I looked at the cover. What was that clue on the cover you might ask? Produced by Jennifer Lopez would be a very good start.

Rob Vega (played by Omarion Grandberry)is a straight up hip-hop rapper who gets shot at one night while he's trying to perform. His mother decides to send him off to Puerto Rico to live with his father Roberto (played by Giancarlo Espositio)and his family. There he meets his half brother Javi (played by Victor Rasuk) and is introduced to Reggaeton, music that blends Reggae and Hip-Hop. The two team up for a single and eventual album as Rob tries to peace back a normal life which eventually leads him back to his home in New York where he has to face his demons.

Does Free Play Mmo's Work?, The Crue on Rockband, and Developing Gaming Skills? - Welcome to the column that developed many childhood skills like reading, riting, and rithemthic but not until they were fifteen known as Dare to Play the Game.

Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. 36 & 19. That's all I should have to post at this point. You know how I roll. My main, the Troll Rogue spent most of the week in Thousand Needles, mining until his little blue hands turned purple (or would that be black, I'm not sure). . He's well into Mithril now and a mining skill over 200. Blacksmithing is kinda steady, hitting the 190 range. The Dwarf Priest, well he received some what of a blow this weekend trying to help others in Dead Mines. Grouped with 4 others and I did a great job of healing up until the last boss, Edwin Van Cleef. I was aggrohealing all over the place it seemed and not able to get any good communication going (I blame myself as much as I blame others). So needless to say, we died...a lot. Three times until we got it right. Probably didn't help it was 1 in the morning either. I got jack from the instance except for the experience both numerical and practical. Hopefully, I can improve my skills in future endeavors.

I couldn’t find her name anywhere on the credits, but I simply cannot believe that Rosie O’Donnell didn’t have anything at all to do with the film Conspiracy. The film is a thinly veiled pot shot at the current administration, or at least Dick Cheney. Gary Cole plays a guy named Rhodes, who is really intended to represent Cheney. Rhodes controls a multibillion dollar corporation that has managed to set itself up in Iraq making millions from the war thanks to corrupt government officials. His company, Halicorp, is obviously intended to be Haliburton. Rhodes has also taken control of a small Arizona border town. Here his vigilante friends patrol the border, turning back, and even killing, Mexicans attempting to enter the United States. He justifies his deeds in the name of counterterrorism, but the truth his he holds the entire town in fear. Enter MacPherson (Val Kilmer) who recently lost his leg in the Marines in Iraq. When he returns home he comes to Rhodes’s town looking for a Mexican comrade in arms. He finds that there’s no trace of his friend, and his questions have drawn all the wrong kind of attention. After some rather silly plot developments, MacPherson becomes a one man army to challenge Rhodes’s control. Apparently someone has watched Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider one too many times here. Now Kilmer has grown old and rather obese in recent years, so the film needs to take that into account with his fighting style. After all, no one’s going to believe he’s got any real fight in that couch potato body. He wins his fights mostly by being able to duck really well. And returning a bowl of chili he recently ate on someone’s shoes. Figuring that Eastwood scowl was already done, Kilmer appears to be half asleep during each fight. I know I was. He does pack a mean nail gun, and you should just see what he can do with some rolled up paper. When they finally do put some real fire power in his hands, the rest just gets too comical.

 

Still grieving over their father’s death, two sisters – the outgoing Dagmar (Stefania D’Amario) and the neurotic, antisocial Ursula (Barbara Magnolfi) – check into an out-of-season hotel. They are almost immediately immersed in a tangled web of relationships and betrayals involving the hotel manager, his estranged wife, a lounge singer and a drug-addicted patron. At the same time, a series of gruesome sex slayings gets underway.

Writer/director Enzo Milioni’s first film is a clumsy giallo. The elements are all there – psychosexual delerium, black-gloved killer, beautiful cast. So too is the aura of misogyny that haunts so much of the genre – the killings here all involve lethal penetration, and while the murders are generally dealt with relative restraint (a hilarious shadow of a looming erection followed by fade to black), there are, late in the film, a number of particularly tasteless shots of naked victims with bloody crotches. Charming. The ineptness of the filmmaking, however, robs these moments of much of their power: the sex scenes are dull and saddled with the same irritating score every time; the editing is rife with nonsensical cutaways (one of which unintentionally suggests that a dog has been masterminding a drug deal); and the story is so choppily told that characterization varies between the risible and the nonexistent. Add to this a resolution that even the most casual viewer of gialli will see coming a mile away, and you have a pretty weak entry. And yet, for all that, there is that delicious ineffable whiff of 70's Italian exploitation that makes even the weakest entries plenty of fun.

Anesthetic Awareness is a phenomenon where a surgical patient is completely aware and able to feel pain while under anesthesia. It occurs in about 5 out of every 1000 patients, with about half of those 5 aware enough to feel excruciating pain. Apparently the condition is not readily noticeable by the surgical team and is only discovered through recounts of the experience after the procedure. Patients are often able to tell doctors details of conversations they had while the patient was supposed to be completely out of it. Sounds like a creepy idea for a thriller, doesn’t it? It sure does.

And so the remakes continue apace. While we shudder at the prospect of butchered returns to Suspiria and the like, this weekend we can head on over to Prom Night and pretend it’s 1980, particularly since, by all reports, a not-very-good movie has been redone as an awful one. But it didn’t have to be this way, which is what motivates today’s musings. Let’s say I’m in a if-you-can’t-beat-‘em-join-‘em frame of mind. If the remakes are going to happen, the subjects of the remakes might as well deserve it. Prom Night is a case in point: it’s not like they were messing with a classic here. The Amityville Horror is another example. The original, though dear to my heart, is, if I’m being brutally honest, not exactly what one could call “good.” And yet the remake was even worse.

Go figure.